Camp Batman
by paganpunk2
Summary: Batman, Robin, Flash, and Kid Flash spend a weekend training in the great outdoors. Part of the 'Spark in the Dark' series. T for language.
1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note: Here we go, dear readers; 'Camp Batman'! For those of you keeping track, this is a 'Spark in the Dark' story (see my profile if you don't know what that is or need a chronology) set a few weeks after 'Turkey Song.' I'm not going to make a guess as to how long it will be because my muse has shown me up so often when it comes to that that it's embarrassing. **

**The Dick and Tim story I promised (now entitled 'Tectonic Doom') is still a go, but I haven't decided whether I will write it simultaneously with this story or wait until I finish up here to start in on that project. I'm leaning towards the latter option, but feel free to put in your two cents. **

**As always, happy reading!**

* * *

"Bruuuuce..."

The billionaire sighed without opening his eyes. Flinging the blanket back, he invited the boy into the bed without speaking. A small form materialized beside him almost instantly, and he pulled it in close. "Go back to sleep," he whispered.

"...I had the Gobblehead dream again," a soft moan announced. "It's _scary_. I don't want to think about him that way."

_Oh, kiddo..._ A few days after the turkey's passing Dick had begun experiencing awful night visions in which the Montgomery Project had succeeded, but with a twist. Instead of serving as docile signboards for the advancement of veganism, he saw the intelligent animals turning violently on their keepers and anyone else who got in their way. They ripped through innocent people in a terrifying reversal of the food chain, showing no mercy for age or infirmity. That would have bad enough on its own, the child had disclosed after the third or fourth iteration of his dark dream, but Gobblehead was always the ringleader of the modified creatures. No longer the loving bird that they had known, he seemed to be the mastermind behind the attacks on humans, and gave no quarter even to those who had cared for him in another reality.

"Okay," Bruce cooed now that he knew the problem. "Tell me about it." All he _really_ wanted was to drift back into the vague unconsciousness he'd been flirting with when his door had opened, but he couldn't sleep when his boy was hurting.

"It was like the other ones – you know, Gobbles was in charge – only...only this time you were there."

He frowned. "..._I _was there?" That was new; the turkey had only gone after Dick on previous nights. "What was I doing?"

"Well...you're not going to like it."

"Tell me anyway."

"Um...so, you were down in the big barn, you know, at the Project? And you were Batman. And...and you were killing all the babies, like...like you did. Like you had to," was tacked on swiftly. "Then...then Gobbles saw you, and he got mad because you were killing his brothers and sisters. He called all the other animals, and they...they k-...they..."

"Ooookay," Bruce crooned. _They killed me. Got it. _It was no wonder that Dick had come running in to him at four in the morning. A hiccup sounded against his shoulder. "Don't cry, chum. I'm right here. It's okay."

"I kn-know, but...but Gobbles shouldn't _be_ like that! Why is he like that?!"

"He's not, Dicky. He's not, and he never was. You know that," he soothed, rubbing circles on the child's hitching back. "It's all over. It's okay."

"Then w-why c-c-can't I stop making him b-bad in my dr-dr-dreams?!"

"I...I don't know." He'd have given a great deal at that moment in exchange for any better of an answer. _I should never have told him the details of the Project,_ he grimaced at the ceiling. It had been unavoidable given the circumstances, but he cursed his lack of foresight anyway. Why had he gone into such excruciating detail? He should have just said that they cleared out the animals and left it at that, he mused. The idea occurred to him that his guilt over the specific role he'd played in the long-past proceedings might have been what had driven him to confess in full, but he pushed it away. He was supposed to help carry Dick's burdens, not throw his own on top of the boy's already-laden shoulders, and he didn't dare entertain the notion that he'd done something so selfish.

"I don't know, kiddo, but he _wasn't_ bad, remember?" he tried finally. "He wasn't bad, and if you just keep reminding yourself of that eventually the dreams will stop." _I hope,_ he added in his head. They had to, because he didn't know what else to do.

Slowly, the sniffles faded. "...Bruce?"

"What is it, chum?"

"I...I really miss Gobbles."

"...I know, kiddo. I know." The longing in his son's voice highlighted something that Alfred had said a few days before. School had let out some three weeks before, and the butler had noticed an uncharacteristic quietness about his younger charge of late. While Dick had made no real friends in his classes at Gotham Academy, he got along with the other children there well enough to take the edge off of the alienation he'd felt at his previous school. Between the loss of that daily socialization, Gobblehead's passing, and Wally being several hundred miles away, loneliness seemed to be setting in.

Bruce couldn't stand it. He'd come home from the office a couple of afternoons ago only to be informed that his son had gone for a solitary walk in the woods. He went after him with a vague fear churning in the pit of his stomach, tortured by all of the different ways the child could be hurt whilst out on his own. His relief at finding him safe and sound at the pond had been short-lived, however, as the ten-year-old's hunched posture had evinced an angst that was far too advanced for his young age. The sad haze had vanished as soon as Bruce announced himself, but it made its mark on the man and left him determined to find some remedy for his son's isolation.

With the child cowering against him, a victim of both involuntary estrangement and horrid nightmares, it seemed like as good a time as any to give him a surprise. "...I was going to wait until Friday to tell you this," he began hesitantly, "but..."

"But you'll tell me now?" The question was curious, going so far as to border on excited, and Bruce smiled in the dark. "Please?"

"I'll tell you now, _but_," he added a caveat, "you have to promise to go to sleep afterwards. Deal?"

"I promise! What's the secret?"

"Well...do you remember last summer, when we camped out on the back lawn?"

"Uh-huh. That was so much fun. Are we going to do it again? Do you think I could invite Wally this time? And maybe-"

"Hold your horses, kiddo," the billionaire chuckled at the way Dick's mood had rebounded at the prospect of a shared secret. "Just slow down a second and let me finish."

"Oh. Oops. Sorry."

"It's okay. Now," he went on, "I seem to recall you commenting that while 'Camp Bruce,' as you called it, was fun, you'd _really_ like to go to Camp Batman. Am I right?"

There was tiny gasp followed by a moment of absolute silence, and he knew that Dick was holding his breath in anticipation. "Do...are we gonna have Camp Batman?" came a tiny whisper. "Oh my gosh, Bruce, are...are we _really_?"

He wished he could see the boy's face better, but he brushed the loss off with the thought that there would be a thousand happy expressions to snapshot this weekend. "We really are, if you want to." A joyful squeal sounded, making him reach for his ear. "Gaah...but we can't go if I'm deaf."

"'M sorry! I'm just...this is so...eep!" Dick rolled into a kneel, bouncing on the mattress as if he'd had new batteries put in. "But...can we invite KF and Flash? Pretty, _pretty_ please can we invite them? And...and where are we going to do it? We can't do it _here_, right? And-"

"That's all taken care of," Bruce hushed him. "I've arranged a secret location – no, I won't tell you, it's a secret – where we'll be met on Friday afternoon by Flash and-"

"Yaaaay!" the boy cheered.

"-and Kid Flash," he finished, laughing outright. "I'll leave work early so we can be sure we have plenty of time to set up camp before dark. Sound good?"

"That sounds _amazing_! But...how are we getting there? We can't drive around in the Batmobile during the day, can we?"

"Well, we _could,_ but we're not going to." The mode of transport to and from the campsite was, he thought, the best part of his plan. Suddenly eager to reveal that last detail, he almost felt like sitting up and bouncing right along with the boy.

"So...how, then? Are we going as civilians?"

"No. This is going to be Camp Batman from start to finish. The way we're getting there," he slowed the pace of his words, wanting to make the moment last, "is in the Batplane."

The agitation of the mattress ceased. "We're...we're gonna_ fly_?" a disbelieving inquiry cut through the darkness.

"Yup. We're going to fly. What do you think? Oof," he puffed as Dick tackled him in a massive hug. "...I take it you like the plan, huh?"

"You're the best guardian in the whole _universe_, Bruce."

He let the praise wash over him, almost feeling as if he deserved it for once. "We're going to have a great weekend, chum," he swore. "But keep in mind, this is Camp Batman; the point is to train, not to have fun." They would have fun – he'd make sure of it – but there was also a lot they needed to cover while they had the chance.

"Training with you _is_ fun. Training with you, Wally, and Barry...that's..."

"Triple fun?"

"No. That's fun to the power of three. I wanted to use exponents in my description."

"Fun to the power of three," Bruce shook his head, amused.

"_More_ than triple fun."

"Is it? 'Fun' is singular," he teased, "so no matter how many times you multiply it by itself it's still just fun."

A pensive moment passed. "...'Fun' isn't a number," Dick ruled. "So I think it follows different rules even though it's singular. Instead of just fun, you end up with, like, FUN!" He squeaked the last word, throwing all of his limbs out expansively before letting them drop back to the bed with a _thump_. "Yeah. I like that."

"Okay, Dicky-bird, you win. Now," Bruce yawned, "we had a deal. I gave you your surprise early, so you have to hold up your end of the agreement and go to sleep."

"But I'm so excited! Can we just, like, skip the rest of the week and go straight to Friday?"

"Heh. I wish we could do that every week, but I'm pretty sure that messing with time falls squarely under the category of villainous activities."

"What about for Superman? He messes with time, and _he's_ not whatchacallit. Villainous."

"He did that _once_, and he was a fool for doing so. He'd be an utter dumbass if he tried it again." He paused. "Don't repeat that word."

"You know I won't. Alfred would melt me with one look."

"Probably. He'd at least wash your mouth out with soap."

"Eeewwww...gross. Anyway, Superman did it once, and he's not a villain, so...we could maybe do it once? Just this _one_ time?"

"Even if I could, kiddo, I wouldn't."

"Why not?!"

"Because the anticipation of something like this is half the fun. Also, because it won't hurt either of us any to get a little practice being patient. Thirdly," he rolled so that the child wasn't using him as a pillow anymore, "because if I fast-forward the week I won't get any sleep, and you'll have a very cranky Batman to deal with at camp."

"...I don't want that."

"No, no you don't." _He's cranky enough on eight hours of shut-eye, let alone none._

"Okay. I guess I'll try to go to sleep, then." Dick gave a happy little hum and snuggled in closer. "Maybe now I'll dream about camping instead of about Gobbles doing bad things..."

"There you go," Bruce murmured back, his eyelids slipping south now that he'd helped put a smile back in its rightful place on his son's lips. "Think about that."

"Mmkay." For all his purported wakefulness, the boy's voice had grown sleepily distant. "...G'night..."

"Night, Dicky," he answered. "Sweet dreams." _Look forward, not back,_ he thought fervently. _Don't make my mistake and become mired in the past. You can be so much more than your history…you __will__ be so much more…I'll make sure of it…_


	2. Chapter 2

"Master Wayne," Alfred greeted him at the front door on Friday afternoon. "I'm glad you didn't put off your homecoming any longer. I fear the young sir's enthusiasm for this weekend may have become too much for him to bear if you had."

Reading the half-concealed grin the butler was wearing, Bruce grew curious. "Where is he?" he inquired. "I expected him to knock me over the second I set foot in the house."

"I'm sure he would have done exactly that if you were heading out on your trip as civilians, sir. As things are, however, he is downstairs, fully garbed as Robin and awaiting your arrival with something less than perfect patience." Alfred paused. "He's been ready for over an hour. I barely convinced the dear boy to eat lunch before he went below and prepared."

_So eager, _Bruce hummed to himself, smirking. "Is he on his bars?"

"Has been since the moment his mask went on, yes."

"Good. He'll sleep well tonight." _Maybe even without any nightmares_. "Do you need me for anything up here,or...?"

"No, sir. Go on and make him happy. I'll come to bid you farewell shortly."

"Right." Handing off his briefcase, Bruce started for the clock. It was no surprise that Dick had jumped the gun on getting ready for their trip; after all, the last three days had been filled with nothing but camping, camping, camping. Forbidden from building practice shelters on the lawn due to the destruction to the landscaping that his gathering of materials would cause, the boy had been watching nature documentaries and reading survival articles online instead. Every evening the billionaire had been regaled with all of the new things his son had learned since breakfast. While he was overjoyed that Dick's loneliness seemed to have abated, he was looking forward to conversing about something other than the best way to pitch a tent once the weekend was over.

Still, he couldn't blame him for being excited. To tell the truth, he shared the sentiment. Even with Batman at the helm, he was going to enjoy seeing his boy tumble around in the forest. Having the speedsters join them was an added bonus, as it would give the children some much-needed bonding time. Almost as importantly, it would allow him to pry a little info about Wally's adoption out of Flash. Barry had been oddly taciturn in the weeks since Gobblehead's passing, and the successful conclusion of his legal dealings was the only excuse Bruce could come up with for it. He was still his usual talkative self during JLA meetings and in conversation with others, but the nascent camaraderie that had been building between him and Batman – courtesy of their inseperable proteges – seemed to have fallen flat. The perceived rejection stung both day and night, and he was determined to get to the bottom of it.

What mattered, he supposed as he descended into the cave and headed for the sound of palms slapping against fiberglass bars, was that Barry had agreed to go despite some initial hesitancy. There was no question in Bruce's mind that Dick would have had a great time even if it were only to be the two of them, but he knew that this way was better. His son was too sociable to be locked up in the house all summer, making contact with his only friend for a mere two or three hours a week. He deserved better.

"Bruce!" Robin hailed ecstatically.

"Careful!" Bruce barked back as the child, distracted from the routine he was gliding through, nearly missed the next bar. _Jesus, pay attention, Dick,_ he shuddered, picturing broken bones and hearing the resultant shrieks in his mind. _Don't scare me like that. _

"Be right down!" Swinging through a few more moves, he dismounted with a flourish. A second later he stepped forward into a roll, straightened at the edge of the mat, and ran to the waiting billionaire. "Hi!" he beamed upward as he threw his arms around the man's waist. "Is it time?"

Shaking his head free of the calamities that had filled it, the billionaire squeezed him tightly. "Almost. I have to change, and we still have to load the plane."

"...Oh. Well, let's do that stuff, then, so we can go!" Robin bounced out of their embrace. "I'm _sooooo_ excited!"

"I can tell. Give me a couple of minutes to get dressed, okay?"

"Okay. But _hurry_, Bruce, please?"

"All right, all right," he chuckled as he turned towards the changing area. "I'll be quick."

When he emerged a short while later with the cowl in one hand, the youth was back in the air . "Ready, kiddo?" he inquired when the show had ended.

"Yes, yes, yes!"

"Then let's go load the plane."

"That won't be necessary, sir," Alfred spoke as he reached the bottom of the stairs. "I put everything in place this morning. The only things left to be loaded are yourselves."

"Yay! You're the best, Alfred," Robin cheered.

"Oh, I don't know about _that,_ young sir, but I do what I can. Flattery aside, however," his voice turned lecturing, "you must be certain that you do exactly what you're told this weekend, hmm? There are many ways to be hurt in the wilderness that aren't often a concern in the city, and we want you to come back in one piece."

"Don't worry!" the boy chirped. "I'll listen to Batman. I mean, the whole point is to train, so it would be really dumb of me to _not_ listen, right?"

"Indeed. But while you're training, don't forget to have a little fun."

"We won't. We're going to have _so_ much fun training..."

"I sincerely hope so. Since that's settled, then, sir," Alfred turned to Bruce, "are there any special instructions during your absence?"

"No." He paused. "...You loaded_ everything_ I had set out?"

"Yes, sir. Everything."

"Okay. Then we should be good. You know how to get in touch with me if there's an emergency."

"I do. Although we didn't discuss our story in case anyone simply _has_ to know where the pair of you are."

"Ahh..." His brow drew down as he searched for a likely tale. "...You know what?" he said finally, "tell them the truth."

The butler's eyebrows shot up. "I beg pardon, Master Wayne?"

"Tell them we went camping. Load the civilian outdoors gear into one of the SUVs, drive the thing through a few mud puddles, and park it down here; that way if we _do_ have to come back we can drive up to the front door and back your story with visuals."

Alfred nodded approvingly. "Very well, sir. I'll make the necessary preparations."

"Good. Thanks."

"Yeah, thanks, Alfred!" Robin exclaimed, skipping forward to give the older man a hug and receiving gentle pat in return. "You won't be lonely this weekend without us, will you?" he asked anxiously as they pulled apart.

"Oh, I daresay I'll find plenty to do. A thorough cleaning of the house from top to bottom comes to mind."

"...That sounds kind of boring. You should do something fun!"

"I'm sure I'll take a few more hours than usual for sleep and reading with a nice cup of tea. That will be plenty of fun for me. Now, sirs, you really must be on your way. You're risking being late for your rendezvous with Mister Allen and young Mister West."

"And that's lesson one," Bruce said, dropping the cowl and his voice into Batman position. "Never, _ever_ be late for a mission. Timing is often everything."

"Then let's go! We don't want to be late!" Robin took off towards the tunnel that led to the underground hangar. "Bye, Alfred! I'll miss you! See you Sunday!"

"Have a good trip, young sir," the Englishman called after him. "And you as well, Master Batman. If you please, try and let the children have a bit of free time this weekend; it won't detract from their training, and the brief distraction will help ready them for the next task."

"I've structured the necessary breaks into the schedule," the vigilante replied. "Is there anything else?"

"...No, sir. I'll see you Sunday evening."

"Right. Sunday." Whirling away, he stalked after the boy. His much longer stride allowed him to catch up halfway down the passage, where Robin had stopped and was peering up at the ceiling with a comtemplative look on his face. "...Robin?"

"You said Unc-" He frowned and corrected himself. "-Superman built this part of the cave, right?"

"...Yes," he grimaced. _Is it so much to ask for one weekend without mention of the big blue so-called ubermensch? _

"Okay. Cool."

Curiosity overwhelmed Batman's urge to move on. "Why do you ask?"

"I was just thinking, that's all."

"About?"

"Friendship."

"...Friendship." _Oh, hell._ Of course the child was thinking about that; they were on their way to reunite him with his best friend, after all. "I would have thought you were too excited about your first flight for philosophy," he attempted to pull him back on track now that his question had been answered.

"Oh, I'm excited! Like, _ridiculously._ But...KF and I, Wonder Woman and Superman, _you_ and Superman...it's just funny, you know? We're all so different, but we have each others' backs. Don't we?"

"I suppose."

"He helped you build the cave."

"...Yes." Why did he have to harp on that?

"And...well...you and Wonder Woman and Superman took down the...the Project." His eyes fell to the floor for a moment. "And probably lots of other stuff, too, that I don't know about. Right?"

"Correct."

"And now we're going camping with Flash."

It was Batman's turn to frown. "And with Kid Flash," he pointed out. "You wanted your friend along."

"Yeah, I did. And...well, you did too, didn't you? I mean, you don't mention Flash the way you do Superman, but he's sort of become your friend, right? Like, if you had to build another one of these tunnels," he swept his arm up in an arc to indicate the glittering walls, "and you had to do it _fast,_ but Superman wasn't around, wouldn't you ask Flash to help?"

"That's an extremely specific hypothetical, Robin," he tried to dodge the question.

"Sure, but...am I right?"

"You...aren't necessarily wrong." As annoying as it was to admit that, it wasn't worth lying outright about. Not after the damage lying had done to their relationship only a few weeks before.

"So you wanted to go camping with a friend, too? It's just that you invited them both before I even asked if KF could come," he pointed out as the man's mouth turned down again. "I mean...you could have just asked _him_ to come, but you invited Flash, too. Doesn't that mean something?"

Batman crossed his arms, perturbed not at Robin's astute observations but at the truth he could see lurking behind them. "Perhaps all I desired was to have an extra set of eyes on you this weekend," he fired back.

"But Flash is the only one who can see KF now, so won't he be busy watching out for him instead?"

"...Kid Flash has managed vanishing speed?" That was news to him, and furthermore it was something that he would have expected Flash to have bragged about incessantly. A twist of exclusion agony darted through the center of his armor again. "How do you know?"

"He told me last week at the meeting." Robin cocked his head. "You didn't know?"

"...No. Why didn't you tell me sooner?"

"I thought Flash would've told you. Anyway, KF is pretty sure he went vanishing speed last winter when we were fighting Sawbones, but I guess it doesn't count in high-stress situations like that. Now he can go that fast whenever he wants, more or less. Just...vroom!" Robin giggled. "It's pretty neat, huh?"

"Yes. I suppose it is, for a speedster. A mark of maturity." His discontent deepened. For Flash not to talk his ear off with inanities after every meeting was one thing; for him to withhold two major developments involving his protege was something else altogether. It didn't make sense, not when he considered that their boys were the main reason that they'd been spending more time with one other – 'bonding,' if he wanted apply popular terminology to it – to begin with.

"You're not upset, are you? I didn't mean to make you upset. Honest, Batman, you're not mad that you didn't know, are you? I know you hate not knowing things." The vigilante felt small, gloved fingers grasp his wrist. "...Batman?"

"...No, Robin, I'm not mad. It's good that you told me; now I can adjust the weekend's events to challenge Kid Flash at his new level." He squeezed the child's hand for the barest instant. "There's no more time to talk now. We're running late. Let's go." With that he continued towards the waiting jet, staring straight ahead as his partner scurried along at his side. _Damn it,_ he grumbled to himself as they walked. _Damned insight, and in one so __young__...damned topic to begin with. Damned friendship. Damned... _

It took far more effort than he would have like to swallow the next word. _Damned Flash. What is going on, and why do I care? This is loathsome, this feeling. __This__ is why close bonds are a weakness, this...this pain._ A happy squeal sounded at his elbow as they came into view of the Batplane._ Close bonds...god __damn__ it!_ There was no way to sever, or even to loosen, his recently-forged ties to Flash without hurting Robin. Even if he'd wanted to pull back from the other man – which he didn't really, he acknowledged grudgingly – he didn't dare. The only solution open to him was to solve the mystery of his...friend's...close-mouthed behavior and try to set things back the way they'd been until a few weeks before.

"Batman!" He looked up from where he'd stopped at the base of the ladder to find Robin beaming at him from overhead. "Can we go, _please_?!"

For a moment he merely stared up at the grinning pixie leaning from his plane. Then he gave a terse nod and began to climb, shoving Flash out of his head. There would be time for that later; right now, he was going to teach his son how to fly, and if that didn't deserve his full attention he didn't know what did.


	3. Chapter 3

Half an hour after Batman had given him permission to take off his seatbelt, Robin still wasn't done wandering around the plane. Their take-off had been thrilling, and he still tingled with joy every time he recalled it. Once the earth had stopped growing noticably further away he'd paid close attention to his mentor's actions, fascinated by the complexity of the control panels. After the autopilot was set the duo had toured every section of the craft that could be safely accessed while they were in flight. The boy had listened raptly as special features were explained and the emergency exits were pointed out, soaking everything in.

Now, having been left to his own devices, he scampered from station to station in order to peek out of all the windows. He'd been told not to go back into the cargo hold alone, so he desisted, contenting himself with staring longingly at the heavy door separating it from him. All of their supplies were in there, he knew, and he ached to learn whether or not there were any special Batman camping gadgets. He had asked, but had received nothing more than a cryptic smirk in reply, leaving him guessing. He supposed that there were – the man had a gadget for everything, it seemed – but he would have to wait to find out for sure.

Ahead of the hold were the medical bay and the lab, each looking out over one of the wings. The engines he could see hanging under them were capable of rotating around to allow for hovering, he remembered being told. As much of a hurry as they were in to get to their rendezvous, however, he didn't figure that they would be taking breaks to try the system out. Before long counting the nearly-invisible rivets in the plane's sleek black hull grew tedious, and he moved up into the compact passenger section. The portholes there had a clearer view to the earth, but he found only a flat bank of clouds far below and bright blue emptiness above.

The featureless field of blinding fluff below them wasn't nearly as interesting as the puffy giants he'd been carried past by Superman a few months earlier, and it couldn't manage to keep him entertained. He sighed, disappointed that his first flight was turning dull so quickly. Playing the initial moments of their journey over in his mind, he reflected that there were still dozens of knobs and switches around the pilots' seats that he didn't know how to use. If the atmosphere wasn't going to be interesting, he mused as he passed the last bulkhead before the cockpit, then maybe the plane itself would be. "Batman?" he asked, poking his head around the corner.

The man answered without turning away from the windshield. "Have you finished exploring?"

"Yes. Well...for now. The sky got kind of boring-looking."

"Stratus nebulosis opacus."

He wrinkled his nose at the phrase. It sounded like Latin, but Alfred had barely started to teach him anything about the language outside of anatomy terms, so he couldn't be sure. "Huh?"

"Stratus nebulosis opacus. That's what kind of clouds are boring you."

"Oh!" Clambering up into the co-pilot's seat, he crossed his legs. "Stratus nebulosis opacus," he repeated, letting the words roll around in his mouth before he formed them with his lips. "So...do you think it's raining under those clouds?"

"No."

"...Oh. Um...why not?" _You seem cranky. Maybe I really __did__ make you mad back at the cave,_ he fretted.

Batman looked over at him just then wearing what Robin would have sworn was a faint smile. "You want to learn about clouds?"

"Sure. I mean...how do you know it's not raining?"

"Recognizing the cloud type is important. What we're flying over now rarely does more than drizzle." Leaning forward, he tapped one of the several touchscreens embedded into the dashboard. "Here. This program pulls current atmospheric readings from the three nearest towns with official recording stations. Then it triangulates the data and gives you an idea of the conditions on the ground."

"It can really do that?" the boy gaped. "I mean, it says it's not raining, which is what _you_ said, but...isn't it ever wrong?"

"Over terrain similar to what's below us, no, it's almost never wrong. It does very well with flat ground and low, rolling hills like the ones around Gotham. Most of its errors occur in areas with extreme topography, where there are dozens of factors to be considered. Rain shadows, microclimates, and other things like that can all cause it to be inaccurate, particularly when the nearest measuring devices are distant. But there's a way to get around that, if you _have_ to know what's going on before you descend."

"Will you show me?!" It didn't seem possible to know what was happening underneath the thick blanket shielding the earth from their eyes, but if anyone could come up with a way it was Batman.

"Not right now. This isn't a safe place, we're over too many settlements."

"Aww..." His shoulders slumped. _Bummer_.

"-But I'll explain it to you," the plane's other occupant finished.

"Hooray!" He perked up and leaned forward. "So?"

"While you have this program up, if you select 'descent reading'," one armored finger pointed out an option on the screen, "it will bring up launch options. You want to be in hover mode before you choose one, because when you do the plane will drop a device that looks like a rock. That 'rock' takes readings just before it reaches the ground, and sends them back up to you. It can also take pictures and video. We don't need to use it often, and sometimes it takes two tries before the system realizes exactly what the altitude is of the terrain below and adjusts accordingly, but it's useful to have." He paused. "It's saved me on at least one occasion."

Anticipating a new tale of Batman's adventures, Robin planted his elbows on his bent knees and put his chin on his knuckles. "What happened?!" he asked.

"Mm...I was chasing three men who had gotten their hands on weapons-grade plutonium. Don't ask how they managed it; it's a long story that involves a great deal of stupidity on the part of others. Anyway, the criminals knew that they would have a much better chance of getting away after they crossed into Mexico, so they drove south. By the time I was called in and breifed they were too far gone for me to catch up in the car, so I flew. "Once I was over their approximate location, I needed to drop down and scan for them. There were tornado watches and warnings all around, but the odds were good that they would try to push through. That would make them easy to spot on the roads, which should have been fairly deserted. Now, I'd had to get very near to the plane's maximum altitude in order to get above the thunderstorms, and I felt it prudent to verify the situation below before I descended. I picked what I thought would be a clear spot to break through the cover and dropped a descent reader. What I got back was...less than promising."

"Did it fall right into a tornado?!" Robin gasped, his fingernails digging into his palms from excitement.

"Almost. It was blown a fair distance sideways before it even began to relay information. When it _did_ start up, it showed two active funnels within three miles and a third about to touch down. If I'd tried to drop right there, I might very well have been caught up in one of them. Of course, that's assuming that the plane survived the turbulence of going through the storm itself," he added almost as an afterthought. "Either way, I determined that the risk was too high and flew further south to intercept them outside of the worst of the weather."

"And then you caught them and saved the day!" the boy cheered.

"No. I didn't."

He started. "...What? You don't mean they got away?!" _No way, you always get the baddies!_

"No, they didn't escape, but _I_ didn't get them. The storm did."

His eyes widened under his mask. _...Oh. Gosh... _"Did they...did they die?" he asked solemnly.

"Yes. Their decision to try and drive through got them killed. Their car was two hundred yards off of the highway and in a small ravine when it was found. All three of them were still inside. The plutonium was recovered by the authorities without further incident."

"Wow..." He slid back in his chair, pensive. "I know they were bad guys, but that's a really awful way to die." _They_ _must have been so scared_... He tried to imagine how it must have felt, driving through a terrible storm with people – and not just any people, but _Batman_ – chasing after them. Their car would have been rattling and shaking horribly before they were tossed into death, he was certain. He wondered if they'd been wearing seatbelts...

His stomach dropped without warning, drawing a yelp of fear from his throat. For a second he had the wild thought that his attempts to put himself in the dead men's shoes had somehow manifested in the real world. Sinking his teeth into his lip, he looked to his mentor for reassurance. _I take it back!_ _I don't want to know what it was like!_

"Turbulence," Batman explained. "Do you see those clouds ahead?"

Robin peered out of the windshield and located an array of wispy white tendrils. "Y-Yes," he nodded. "What...what are those?" _We're not in a tornado. We're not gonna die. It's okay..._

"Cirrus clouds. Sometimes they indicate what's called clear air turbulence."

"Is...is it going to happen again?"

"It might. It's not uncommon." The cowl swiveled towards him. "...Did it scare you?"

There was no judgment in the question, but he glossed over the truth anyway. "Not really. I mean...it was just new, you know?"

The man's blank eyes stayed on him for a long second, forcing him to swallow hard. He hadn't really lied, he told himself; he was just making sure that his partner knew he could handle whatever came up. Maybe it hadn't even been the turbulence that had scared him, but rather its timing. Before he could open his mouth to insist that he was fine, though, Batman gave a single slow nod. "Good," rumbled forth. "It will be less disturbing if you put your seatbelt back on," was added a moment later.

"Oh! Okay." Fumbling with the still-unfamiliar apparatus, he managed to secure himself in time for another sharp fall. "Whoooa..." On the heels of his surprised moan came a spate of giggles. They caught him off-guard, forcing further laughter out as the plane bucked once more. _...Maybe this turbulence stuff isn't so bad after all,_ he allowed._ It's actually kind of fun. _"Wheeee!" he called out as they rode another invisible wave.

"...Robin."

The boy sobered. "Um...yes, Batman? Am...am I being too loud? Was there something else you wanted to show me, or-"

"No. I was only going to advise that you try putting your arms in the air the next time we hit a bump."

He blinked, confused. "Okay, but...why?"

"I...don't know," a rare confession slipped from the pilot's lips. "But I've been told that performing that particular action makes roller coasters more exciting. Given that, it seems logical that it would also increase the enjoyability of turbulence."

"You _want_ me to enjoy it?"

"You may as well. It's an unavoidable phenomenon, and it's better that it amuses you than that it scares you."

Robin almost protested that he could help fly rather than have fun – this was a training outing, after all – but they began to bump through the air again and his giggles returned. Glancing over at Batman, he grinned and shoved his hands up over his head. "Aaaahehehe," he dissolved into laughter almost immediately. "That's so much more fun!"

The plane leveled out. "...Good."

Leaning forward, he inspected what little of his mentor's expression was visible. "You're having fun, too!" he accused happily when he caught the end of a secret smile.

"I'm concentrating on flying, Robin."

"Really? You have rocks that tell you if it's raining under the clouds, but your autopilot needs your help to fly in a straight line? Those priorities seem a little backward, don't you think?" What might very well have been a snort of amusement came from the black-clad figure beside him. An attempt was made to cover it with a cough, but the child knew better. "You _are_ having fun," he ruled, feeling giddy. "...Do you know what would be even _more_ fun?"

"...What?"

"If you put your hands up with me the next time."

"Mm. We probably won't hit any more."

"What?! But there's more of those citrus clouds up ahead!" he protested.

"Cirrus clouds. Not citrus."

"Okay, well, there's more of _those_ up ahead. It's good they aren't citrus clouds, though," he diverted. "It would hurt to fly through lemons and oranges. Anyway, you said cirrus clouds might mean turbulence."

"Correct. They _might_."

"So if they do, will you?"

"...I doubt we'll have sufficient warning for me to prepare. Besides, the plane may require my guidance if the movement is extreme."

_Excuses, excuses,_ Robin sighed. Determined now, he pushed on. "You'd be putting your hands in the air, not taking them off and throwing them away," he pointed out. "They'd be right there if you needed them."

"Robin-"

"Besides," he identified the true problem, "there's no one up here to see you except me. And I won't tell anyone you had fun in costume," he swore. "Not even Wally. Honest."

A minute passed without any reply. Finally he slumped back against his seat, defeated. Shortly thereafter a fresh series of ups and downs began. Trying to have fun despite his partner's decision not to participate, he stuck his hands up. "Wheee..." It was no good. The sensation was still neat, but his heart wasn't in it anymore, and the fun had gone out of it. Sighing, he pulled his knees to his chest and wrapped his arms around them. _Darn it, Batman, no one can see. I know you can smile when it's just me, so why won't you __now__?_

"...Robin."

"Uh-huuuh?" The word drew out as they plunged a few feet.

"...One."

He turned, hope rising anew. "Two?" _Are...are you really going to do it?_ _Please, please do it...it's __fun__..._

"Three."

The timing was perfect. The plane sank, and their hands and stomachs rose. Robin squealed, and although Batman said nothing a glint of teeth was visible under his semi-pained smile. "Yes!" the boy kept his arms up triumphantly when they'd leveled off once again. _You did it. You had fun. I knew you would. _"...Batman?"

"Yes?"

"This is going to be the best weekend ever, you know. I know we're training, but...it's still going to be the best ever. I just know it." He did; that certainty had filled him as he'd watched his partner's gauntlets leave their places on the armrests and rise into the air for no other reason than to catch a thrill.

One lifted again as he watched. Reaching towards him, it brushed over his hair and settled for a moment at the back of his head. Its owner kept his eyes forward, but his voice was softer than usual when he spoke. "I hope you're right, Robin."

"I am," he said confidently, leaning back so that the hand would be trapped for a second longer. "I just _know_."

The limb wriggled free, moved to his shoulder, and squeezed. "...Good."


	4. Chapter 4

There were still several hours of sun left in the day when the Batplane touched down in a deserted clearing. Robin bounced in his seat as much as his safety harness would let him and stared through the windshield, too overawed by the scenery to pay attention to how one went about shutting the engines down. The meadow in which they'd landed ran uphill before the nose of the jet, ending in stately old-growth forest that cascaded over the ridgeline. From above he had seen how the trees went on and on, marching over miles of rises before climbing the sides of rock-topped mountains. The landscape reminded him vaguely of the mountainous sections of Europe he'd seen with the circus, but that had been so long ago that he questioned his recollection. "...Batman?"

"Yes, Robin?" The man halted his explanations with a little huff.

"Um...are we near the Rockies?"

"Yes. Why?"

"Oh." He turned his face away. "Okay. I...I was just curious." It was more than that, it was a thousand times more than that, but he didn't want to break down while he was in costume. He'd gotten the idea on many previous occasions that his mentor could somehow not think about civilian things once the cowl went on, and as much as he tried to imitate that skill he always failed. Feeling the man's eyes on him now, he bit his lip. _Don't cry. Don't think about...about her. Just focus on being Robin and hanging out with KF, and Flash, and Batman. Focus on training all weekend, not...not on her._ _ Anything but her._

"...Robin?"

The usually gruff voice carried a gentle note as it spoke his name, but he shook it off. "Can...can we talk about it later? It's not mask stuff. It's...other stuff." _Mom stuff,_ he cringed. _I wish I'd known we were coming here. I would have told you..._

"Mm..." There was a brief silence. "Very well. We'll discuss it at home."

"Thanks."

"But Robin?"

"Y-yes?"

"...If you change your mind, tell me."

His breath caught. He wanted to swing around and throw himself at the man, wanted to pour his heart out right then and there, but he wrestled the urge down. Doing so would be a disappointment to Batman despite his invitation, he was certain, and would mark another failure in his own efforts besides. Almost as bad was the thought that his partner might want to change their training venue once he knew the problem. As much as it hurt to realize where he was – where he was without _her_ – the last thing he wanted to do was run away. His mother wouldn't have run; she would have embraced the forests and the mountains and everything in them, and that was exactly what he determined to do, too.

"Okay. Thanks," he said, finally turning to face the black-clad bulk beside him again. "I'm okay, though. So...uh...the plane?"

"Is shut down." Batman paused. "I'll show you how to do it again on the way back to the cave, since you didn't have the opportunity to practice this time."

Relief flooded him. "Great. It seemed kinda complicated."

The cowl tilted so slightly to one side that Robin barely caught the motion. "...Yes. But as I said, I'll show you again. For now, press that button."

He moved his hand onto the control panel. "...This one?" he asked, not wanting to hit the wrong thing for fear of what it might do. Receiving a nod, he pushed down. Nothing happened. "Uh...did I do it wrong?"

"No. All that button does is release the safety locks on the cargo bay ramp. Now, do you see the switch above it?"

"Yeah. Do...do I flip it?"

"Yes."

A shudder ran through the floor and a red light went on beside the tiny lever. "Um..."

"It's fine. Just wait."

The bulb turned yellow, then green. "Whew," the child smiled. "That's good right? The green light?"

"It is," Batman agreed, rising and shaking out his cape. "Follow me and I'll show you why."

They walked back through the plane and passed into the rear section. A light breeze had already rolled in through the opening beneath the tail, and Robin took a deep breath. He'd been so busy enjoying his first flight that he'd hardly noticed the staleness of the cabin air. Now, filling his lungs with the scents of forest and field, he felt his muscles loosen. For a moment he wondered if his mentor had sensed his distress and assigned him the task of lowering the walkway as a distraction. Before he could do more than begin to consider that, however, they were standing in the warm sun of late afternoon. "Ooh, wow," he murmured, transported as he discovered that the hillside was even more spectacular when it wasn't viewed through tinted bulletproof glass.

His mentor didn't seem to notice. "Look," he bade him kneel where technology met soil. "Do you see this edge?"

The boy peered at a tiny seam on the very edge of the ramp. "Yes. Why, what is it?"

"Do you see how that piece wraps around to the other side?"

"Yeah. Well, _no,_ because it's up against the ground and I don't have x-ray vision, but...yeah. But what is it?"

"This," Batman tapped the thin black line, "is the same carbon fiber composite that the rest of the plane's fuselage is made of. That's not what matters. What matters is what's under it. There are pressure plates located every inch, all of which relay signals to the cockpit. That's why the light changed colors when you flipped the switch inside. It was red when the ramp was lowering itself, because there was no pressure. It turned yellow when it reached the ground-"

"And then green when the pressure was right?"

"Correct."

"So why'd it stay yellow for so long? Couldn't it just go from red to green? It lowered so fast anyway..."

"It could have, but the yellow light is a safety feature. As soon as fifty percent of the pressure plates are triggered they go into test mode. In test mode they take a reading of the ground beneath them and ensure that it's stable enough to support a preset amount of weight without slipping or sinking. If it will hold, the light turns green. Otherwise, it goes back to red. Make sense?"

"Wooow..." He ran his fingers along the plain-looking strip of material. "That's so cool! But...how often do you _need_ that? I mean, where could you land that the light would go back to red?"

"Sand, mud, lava flows...this plane has been many places, Robin. And you don't always have the option to land before you need to deploy the ramp. The walkway itself won't give out – it locks into position once the plates are in test – but if you need to cross into a building or onto the face of a cliff you want to know that what you'll be stepping onto can support your weight."

"Lava flows?" His jaw dropped. "Holy awesomeness, Batman, have you _really _walked on a volcano?!"

"You're not going to tell him that story right _now_, are you?" a familiar voice inquired as a gust of air washed over the kneeling duo. "As, uh, _fun_ as that day was, I don't really want to relive it. Not even in the form of an epic Batman tale."

"Flash!" As interesting as the lesson about the cargo ramp was, it couldn't compete with the arrival of the speedsters, and he leapt to his feet with a blinding smile. "You're here! But...where's KF?"

"Wait for it."

Sure enough, something invisible smacked into him a second later. The next thing Robin knew he was tumbling through the grass, out of air and unable to draw more. He landed flat on his back, staring up at the high, fluffy clouds he'd come down through only minutes earlier and trying to choke breath back into his body. _Cumulus humilis,_ he recalled pointlessly as his chest pinched, crying out for oxygen. Just as he managed a painful gasp, Kid Flash's mortified face filled his vision. "Heeey," Robin he croaked up at him, trying to grin.

"Oh my god, bro, I killed you!"

"Heh. Don't say that-" he paused to pant, "too loud. You'll...freak out Batman." _Uh-oh. Is he already freaked? If he thinks I'm hurt, he'll take me home. I don't want to go home, we just got here!_ "...Is he coming?"

"Uh..." The redhead glanced over his shoulder. "No. They're both watching, though. I think they might be about to."

"Then help me up." Once he'd been pulled somewhat over-eagerly into a sitting position he waved to the adults, who were indeed watching. "Ugh. Dude, I know you can go really fast now, and that's super awesome, but...do you think you could slow down just a _little_ before you tackle me? Please?"

"I totally meant to, honest! I just..." KF blushed. "I got excited when I actually _saw_ you, and I kind of...well...forgot to."

Robin gave the breath he'd just regained up to laughter. "That's classic _you_," he giggled. "Awesome."

"It didn't hurt, did it?"

It had, but the sensation was fading and there was no point in making his friend feel worse than he already appeared to. "Nah. You just knocked the wind out of me. But you should _totally_ run into the bad guys at that speed," he encouraged. "That would be wicked."

"Yeah...Flash said now that I can go vanishing speed at will he's going to start teaching me how to do compartment...comp...crap. It's a big word," he shrugged.

"Well let's go ask. They're standing right there."

They rejoined the men, around whom the air seemed unusually awkward. "What's that thing called?" Kid Flash asked his mentor. "The compartment thing you're going to teach me?"

"Compartmentalization?"

"Yeah! See, Rob, it's a crazy big word."

He had to agree. "That _is_ a really long word. What's it mean?"

"It's when you make just one part of your body go fast while the rest of you stays still," the grown speedster explained. "We'll probably do a little work on it this weekend while you and Batman are wrestling bears or whatever."

"Wait...we're not _actually-_" It sounded too dangerous to actually be on the syllabus, but then again...

"We're not wrestling bears, Robin," Batman assured.

"Oh. Good." _Bears never did anything to me, so why would I fight one?_

"That'd be pretty neat, though," KF contributed.

"It would be," Flash confessed. He nudged the dark figure beside him. "Think we could get Superman to give it a go?"

"It would be entertaining, so I doubt it. But we have other things to do than debate Superman's willingness to duel forest animals." He jerked his head towards the interior of the plane. "All of the supplies are there."

"Great! I'm starving!" KF announced. "...What?" he answered the looks that were turned on him. "I just ran here from Ohio, of _course_ I'm hungry!"

"Of course you're _always_ hungry, Kid," Flash shook his head with a mock sigh. "That stomach of yours is going to bankrupt me. By the way, thanks for footing the food bill this weekend, Batman," he joked. "Saves me about a grand."

"...I don't really eat a thousand dollars of food in a weekend, do I?"

"Not unless we go to the movies." Seeing that his nephew looked embarrased, Flash backed off. "I'm teasing you. You don't eat a thousand dollars in a weekend. You and me together...that's a different story. But," he clapped his hands together, "discussing grocery bills doesn't get the gear unloaded. What do you think, should we make the trainees bring everything out?"

"No. I want to get the plane out of here before anyone sees it. It will go faster if we all work."

"Wait..." Robin looked to his left just in time to see KF's eyes widen. "You guys came in _that_?!"

"...Bro, did you seriously just now notice the airplane sitting in the middle of the field?" he asked.

"Well...we were busy talking!" The older boy flushed again. "...I guess it's kind of too obvious for me not to have seen it, huh?"

"Yeeeah," Flash groaned. "Maybe we'll just do some more attention span work the next couple of days."

"No, no, anything but that, _please_!" KF begged. "I _hate_ attention training, it's so boring and so freaking _hard_!"

"Okay, okay," the elder speedster raised one hand. "We'll chalk this incident up to you being excited to see Robin. But in the future, uh, let's notice the plane before we walk into it, okay?"

"I swear, I'll notice every plane I ever see again in my entire life!"

"Don't worry," Robin pitched in, "I'll help."

"Yeah! See, so long as Rob and I are together I'll have great attention to detail. It'll just be in his body instead of mine."

"You should always be prepared to be alone, Kid Flash," Batman rumbled, not unkindly. "You never know when that will become the case."

Robin felt his lips turn down. He wanted nothing more than to give his mentor a hug following that statement, but he knew it wouldn't be appreciated while they were in front of others. _Poor Bruce,_ he pouted in his head. _That's such a sad thing to say, especially when we're about to have fun with our friends for a whole weekend._

"...Well," Flash broke the shocked silence, "on that utterly depressing note, why don't we set up camp?"

"Yeah," the dark-haired boy nodded. "Let's set up so we can start training. C'mon, KF," he tugged at his friend's sleeve. "Let's see if you can win a race at normal person speed."

The suggestion was enough to pull the older child's stare away from Batman. "Okay. Uh...wait, normal person speed? What kind of training is _that_?"

"Control training," Flash and Robin said simultaneously.

"Ah, crap...well, okay. I guess it won't be boring if I'm racing you. Ready?"

"Set!" He took up a starting position as KF did the same beside him.

"Normal speed, _go_!"

Up the ramp they raced, and Robin pushed Batman's moment of melancholy into the waiting room with his own. Such things would wait; right now he was on a camping trip with his best friend, and that was all he wanted to think about.


	5. Chapter 5

**Author's Note: I hope you're all enjoying this story as much as I'm enjoying writing it! It seems to be coming along pretty fast, so with any luck I'll be able to keep up with this every-other-day posting routine right through to the end. Thanks so much to everyone who has reviewed; your kind words make the muse fat and happy, haha. Happy reading!**

* * *

"So...why exactly are you sending it all the way back to Gotham, again?" Flash asked a short while later as the four heroes watched the Batplane rise into the sky.

"I don't want anyone to see it, and we have no need for it here," Batman answered bluntly. There was no telling who might fly overhead during their stay in this valley, and the less obvious they made their presence the better. For people to be camping so far off of the beaten path was one thing; for Batman, Robin, and both Flashes to be camping anywhere at all was a different matter altogether. "Possible enemies aside, the government would be sure to investigate a military-grade aircraft parked inexplicably in the middle of the backcountry. I have no interest in dealing with that this weekend." _Or ever,_ he added in his head.

"You mean it can't go invisible?" KF piped up, sounding surprised.

"It can go invisibile to radar," Robin defended their conveyance. "That's part of why we can take off from the cave, right, Batman?"

"Correct. As for why it isn't invisible to the naked eye..." He trailed off. The truth of the thing was that he'd tried to make it fully invisible – had tried many times, in fact – and had simply never managed the feat. Admitting to such a failure in his present company was out of the question, but he supposed he could manage a half-truth. "...Suffice it to say that that is a complex process."

"Oh. Uh...okay."

Seeming to sense that it would be unwise to push for more information, Kid Flash let the topic go. Batman suspected that it would be brought up again between the two boys, but he trusted Robin to come up with answers that would safeguard his reputation for genius. For now it was enough that they could move on to the training module he had come up with. "You have a situation to contend with," he announced.

"We do?" Flash inquired, glancing around the clearing.

"...Not you and I." He fought the urge to glare at the other man for his brief stupidity and almost won. "This is part of what we discussed."

"Oh! Right. Heh. Sorry."

"Mm." Grimacing, he returned his attention to the two children. "Your plane has gone down in the middle of the wilderness. You've both escaped unharmed, but there's nothing left of the wreckage and you have no supplies. There-"

"Why not?" Robin interrupted.

"...What?"

"Why's there no wreckage or supplies? I mean, if we crashed here," he gestured at the field, "then there'd be tons of stuff all over the place, right? Even if it was on fire, we could wait for it to go out and then see if we could salvage anything."

"Yeah," the other boy warmed to the argument. "Heck, we could even takesome of the fire for ourselves. Then we wouldn't have to start one." He nodded, satisfied with his answer. "Saves time that way."

"It totally does. So...why no wreckage?"

Batman blinked at his partner for a second, unamused but not willing to reprimand the youth for working around the scenario he'd laid out. He challenged him to think outside of the box all the time, after all, and yelling at him for having done so in a hypothetical life-or-death situation would be counter-productive. Instead he quickly fabricated an answer and pretended to have been expecting the question. "It's gone over a cliff," he answered. "A cliff so steep and unstable that even I would think seriously before attempting to scale it to look for supplies. Understood?"

"...I guess that means none of the little pieces left up above from before it went over the cliff are usable, then, huh?"

_Clever boy._ He wasn't sure whether he was more proud or annoyed. "You guess correctly. The plane and everything in it is gone." It was his turn to sweep his arm around the clearing. "As you see."

"Oh, I get it now," Flash murmured. "Sorry," he added when Batman's mouth tightened. "Keep going, this is fun."

"Yeah," Robin agreed. "It is. So we've got nothing?"

"Only what you're carrying as part of your costume."

KF sighed, sending his friend an envious look. "I've never wanted to lug around all those tools that you do until right now."

"Don't worry, bro. We'll work together," Robin promised. "...Won't we?" he asked hopefully as he turned to his mentor.

"For this task, yes. In the event of an emergency such as the one described, your survival odds are much higher if you have someone to work with." Fortunately, he gave an internal smirk as the youngsters high-fived, performing as a team was something they were already good at. "You know that there will be a rescue team on the way soon, but you don't know how long it will take them to find you. It could be hours, days, or even weeks."

"Or you could just use one of the three separate tracking device you had Al- you know who, I mean, sew into my costume," his protege broke in again. "You'd be here in, like, a few hours max."

_...Shit_. "Assume that they are malfunctioning, or that I am unavailable to read and relay the tracking information," he ordered. "Now. Your goal is to establish a camp where you can survive until rescue. Begin."

"...Is that all the direction we get?" Robin double-checked.

"For now. Flash or I will point out any errors as you go. But remember," he stressed, "darkness is approaching. You want to have your camp set up before you can't see."

With the basic parameters outlined, the boys' imaginations took over. They should stick somewhat close to the wreck site, they decided, since that was where any rescue would probably start. "But not _too_ close," Robin suggested. "Like, we shouldn't camp right next to it."

"Why not?" KF wrinkled his nose. "We'd be way easier to find if we camped right here, and it's already cleared. It's super easy."

"Yeah, but why did we crash? I mean...there must have been some reason, right? And we're in costume, so that means we were probably coming or going from a mission. What if we were shot down, or if baddies come looking for us? We'd be sitting ducks!"

"Oh. Huh. That's a good point." The younger speedster turned to Batman. "Can we know why we crashed? And...could it maybe _not_ be enemies?"

_Nice try. _"You don't know what occurred. You'd be better off playing it safe. Besides," he pointed out, "camping in the middle of a large, open field near the top of a hill makes you an excellent target for electrical discharge in the event of a storm."

"Let's make sure Kid Flash stays your name because of your speed, not because you make a good lightning rod," Flash half-joked.

"Okay, so...we should move into the trees, right?"

"That sounds good to me," Robin nodded. "Let's go that way," he pointed downhill at an angle.

"Why that way?" Batman broke in to check his partner's thought process.

"I thought I saw a stream over there while we were landing."

_Good._ "Would you still go that way if you hadn't seen anything?" he queried next.

"Um...probably? I mean...we should camp near water, I think, and water runs downhill. Even if I didn't see the creek or whatever it is, there'd be a better chance of finding water between the hills then on top of them."

Satisfied, he backed off. "Continue, then."

"Uh," Flash called after the boys as they headed for the trees empty-handed, "aren't you two going to help with the gear?"

KF laughed. "We don't _have_ any, remember? Batman said so!"

"Suspension of disbelief doesn't override real-life necessity," Batman countered. "You two can carry something."

"Awww, what?!"

"This isn't very good for the scenario, you know," Robin tried as he lifted a large bedroll into position on his back. "I'm finding it _really_ hard to believe that I don't have any supplies because they all fell over a cliff."

"Then don't think of them as supplies." Kneeling, the cowled man began to tighten the straps holding everything to the child's shoulders as Flash did the same for his partner a short distance away. "Think of it as a substitute for the soreness and stress you would actually be feeling in the situation I've described. Or," the corner of his mouth tilted up slightly, "don't think about it at all, and just get the job done."

His son smiled back. "Okay. I can do that."

"Good. Now go."

"Sure. Ready, KF?" Robin asked.

"Gaah, I'm going to fall backwards!"

"Hey, my sleeping bag isn't _that_ heavy, buddy," Flash retorted, scrubbing his palm across the top of his nephew's head encouragingly. "Lead the way."

The two men wrestled with the rest of the gear before following the children towards the woods. Each donned a large backpack, then bent to grab one end of a giant tough box. It took a couple of false starts for them to figure out how to walk without dropping something, but once they got the hang of it they caught up quickly.

"...I have to admit, Batman, I'm a little worried about this weekend," the elder speedster confessed as they neared the trees.

_...Well, that was easier than I thought it would be to get out of you,_ he considered, surprised. "Why?" _Because you've barely spoken to me in weeks, or because you didn't tell me about two fairly important pieces of recent news?_

"Because this doesn't seem like enough food for the next two days, that's why."

He nearly dropped his end of the tote. _Goddamn Flashes and their bottomless stomachs,_ he groused silently. _God forbid we talk about something __important__. _This was hardly the best time to bring up their recent lack of communication, he knew, but having the conversation be diverted unexpectedly to food was irksome. "That's part of the training," he ground out.

"You told me, but...do you really think they'll be able to gather enough?"

"Would it be the end of the world for you to go home a little hungry in the event that they fail?"

"Blasphemy," the other man chuckled. "I guess it wouldn't be. Hell, it's probably good training for Kid, since I doubt he'd be getting the five or six thousand calories a day he eats at home if he was really stranded out here. But..." He placed his free hand over his stomach dramatically. "The horror...the agony..." An intestinal growl was heard. "...The sound and the fury at the mere mention of deprivation..."

_Heh, _Batman admitted a trace of mirth to himself as they began to manuever around tree trunks. "You'll both survive."

"We'll find out soon enough. If the wind picks up and tries to blow my hungry self to Canada, grab my foot and pull me back down, would you?"

"...I'll think about it." He wasn't serious – even if what Flash had described was possible and he was being extremely annoying in the moments before it came to pass, there would be far too much paperwork to do if he let him fly away – but it wouldn't hurt to keep the man on his toes a bit.

The speedster hummed. "You're a strange duck, Batman. Half the time I think you're joking and we're all just missing the punchline."

_Ducks..._ He shook himself immediately. _No. Not that. Not here._ "I don't joke, Flash," he covered his instant of discomfort with a firm assertion.

"Oh, sorry, I forgot you had to protect your fearsome reputation even out here in the middle of nowhere." Eyes rolled. "If the frogs or the birds overheard you making a joke...c'mon, man, I know better than that now. It's not scary anymore when you act all aloof; it's just kind of annoying."

That was hardly an adjective that Batman would have used to describe himself, but before he could retort there was a whoop of joy from up ahead. The boys had slipped through a screen of low underbrush and come out into a small glade, and as the adults joined them Robin put on a beaming grin. "This is it," he swore. "This has to be the most perfect place in the whole world for camping."

"Good," Flash said, setting his side of the tote down with a _thump_. "I'm ready to be done carrying this load."

"Sweet," KF cheered, offering his fist to Robin. "We found a wicked spot."

"Wait," Batman ordered, dropping his end of the bin as well and looking around.

"...What's wrong with it?" his partner asked with a slight frown. "There's a stream right through those trees," he pointed across the opening, "and we wouldn't be too close or too far from the...well, the fake crash site. Lightning probably won't get us because there are trees. So...what?"

He didn't know yet, so he didn't answer as he conducted his examination. The surrounding foliage all appeared to be healthy, and as far as he could tell there were no deadfalls hovering in wait. The space was plenty large enough for their camp without being so big as to be obvious from the air. The brush was far enough back that they could build a fire without worry, and there were no indications that the area was prone to flooding from the nearby waterway. There was just enough dappled sunlight coming through the canopy to put a shine on Robin's claim that this was the best site on the planet, and finally he had to give in.

"Nothing's wrong with it," he judged after a long, silent moment. _That was too easy a task,_ he grimaced. What good were training exercises like this one if they were going to get lucky and find the answer after a mere five minutes of not-very-serious searching? "But the point was for you to learn how to evaluate campsite dangers," he went on, "which you have done only minimally." He watched as three sets of shoulders slumped. "Nevertheless, you _did_ complete the task I set you. So we'll camp here-"

"Yeah!" KF exclaimed.

"Hooray!" Robin grinned.

"Thank god," Flash commented.

"-And as we're moving about on other tasks I will point out things you should avoid in instances when an ideal spot doesn't present itself as soon as you set foot into the woods. Understood?"

"Yes, yes, thank you!" the dark-haired child gave a joyful bounce.

"So...is it dinner time now?" KF inquired hopefully, eyeing the giant bin that the adults had carried.

"No."

"We have to set up camp first, remember, Kid?" Flash reminded him.

"Oh. Well, then, let's do that. I'm starving!"

"That _is_ the next step, isn't it?" the elder speedster asked. "Tents, fire, and food?"

"Yes," Batman agreed, sweeping their short-term home with his eyes once more to be safe. When still nothing presented itself as a reason to move on, he gave a single nod. "...Let's begin."


	6. Chapter 6

An hour later they stood in a line and surveyed their work. "Those look pretty good," Flash said appreciatively.

"They look pretty _awesome,_ you mean," Kid Flash insisted.

"Yeah, they're definitely awesome," Robin voted.

"...They're adequate," Batman tempered the mood. The pair of long, low shelters that they had built weren't the neatest he'd ever seen, but to be fair half of the work crew was under the age of thirteen. He wouldn't have bet on Flash having ever constructed such a thing before, either, and when he took that into account the camouflaged bivouacs qualified as passable. "They'll serve their purpose, at least."

_I'll have to talk to Alfred about letting Robin practice out away from the lawns, _he mused as he spied a bit of moss dangling from the peaked ceiling of their makeshift tent. The better the boy was at building quick shelters, the higher his odds of survival in the event of a scenario like the one they were practicing. Being able to construct them without three extra sets of hands would only give him that much more of an edge, and a few of the Manor's trees were a minuscule price to pay for the boy's life.

A gentle tug on his cape jerked him out of his calculations. "Do we really get to sleep in them?" his protege asked, biting his lip. "Please?"

He arched an eyebrow under his cowl. "Unless you're carrying another form of shelter in your belt, I don't see that you have an option."

"You know I don't have anything else. I just thought...well...are you and Flash going to sleep in them, too? I mean, _you_ weren't in the plane crash. You brought other stuff," he pointed his chin at the pile of gear in the middle of the clearing.

"Yes, we did. Barring bad weather, however, we'll all be sleeping in these," he rested his hand on the top of the nearer shelter. "We'll pair off in our usual teams for purposes of habitation."

"...Oh..."

He recognized the disappointment in that single syllable. "...What is it?"

"It's just...that means that me and KF don't get to camp together, doesn't it?"

The question was asked in such a piteous voice that Batman wavered. He supposed he shouldn't be surprised at this new request. It was natural for the young compatriots to want to spend every moment of the weekend together, considering how little time they had in each others' presence normally. Besides that, it would certainly fit their pretend situation better for them to slumber side-by-side in the same shelter.

Still, the question stung, especially when he reflected that his motivation in determining their sleeping arrangements had been his son's comfort, not his own. As important as it was to maintain the integrity of the training scenario, there were Robin's nightmares to be considered. It was possible that none would rear their heads so long as the boy was masked, but he wasn't holding his breath. There was no telling what sort of demons might have been riled during that odd moment just after the plane touched down, and on top of that there were the recurring Gobblehead visions to factor in.

"...We'll sleep as I said we would for tonight," he ruled slowly. "Tomorrow we can discuss changes." It would have to be enough. Even a child born and raised in a traveling circus was liable to be scared by camping out, and he didn't want the depths of the forest to be associated with fear in the child's mind. The incident with Anaxas over a year earlier had done enough towards that end, he was sure. If there was panic on this first night, he was determined to be close by to calm it. "Understood?"

"Okay." Robin agreed, fortunately opting not to argue that particular point. "That sounds good."

"Guess I'm stuck with you sleep-running next to me all night, Kid," Flash mock-groaned.

"So what? I have to listen to your snoring," the younger speedster teased right back. "That's way worse."

"I won't be asleep long enough to _start_ snoring with the way you twitch as soon as you close your eyes."

"Well I won't be closing my eyes much if I go to bed hungry. We built tents; is it dinner time now?"

"What do you propose to cook your dinner with, Kid Flash?" Batman broke in, crossing his arms.

"Um...fire, I guess? I don't know. I'd eat raw meat at this point. I'm just _hungry_."

"Aaand you just failed the survival simulation," Flash facepalmed.

"Not necessarily," the cowled man replied. "He's just going to have to be hungry a little longer." A fresh pulling of his cape drew his eyes downward. "...Yes, Robin?"

"You said we could only use things that are part of our costumes or that we could fabricate, right?"

He was immediately suspicious. "...Yes, unless I give specific permission otherwise like I did when we helped you to build the shelters."

"And we can use those things as we need to?"

"Yes. Why?"

"Just curious." Wearing a mysterious smirk, Robin turned away. Batman watched as he approached KF and reached into his belt, then held his hand out. "Here. Eat these."

"...You want me to eat chalk?" KF gave him an incredulous look.

"It's not chalk, you dork," the dark-haired child giggled. "They're nutrition supplements. They've got calories and protein and vitamins and other good stuff in them. I know they look weird, but they might help. Plus...they kind of taste like candy."

"They taste like candy? I'm sold." Taking a couple, Kid Flash popped them into his mouth. "...Whoa. These are like malted milk balls!" The rest were dumped into his palm and disappeared just as quickly. "Oh, man...I can't believe you've been carrying candy around the whole time we've known each other, and you never said anything!"

"It's not candy," Batman rumbled, torn once more between pride and irritation. "They're survival rations. And," he went on, "if my count was correct you are now out of them."

Robin patted the pouch they had appeared from. "...Yup. That was all twelve."

"Oooh...crap, bro, I didn't mean to eat all the food we had! You didn't even get any!"

"Eh, I can wait."

"Let's hope so, since you no longer have anything to hold you over."

"But Batman," Robin's grin grew, "now KF should have the energy to help start a fire. Right, bro?"

"Totally! I mean, I'm still hungry, but those were good."

"And I read that food should be prioritized behind shelter, fire, and water in a survival situation. You can live way longer when you're hungry than when you're cold or thirsty, can't you?"

"Yes," he answered, mild exasperation growing as he spoke. "But that's not the point. The point is that you failed to think strategically."

"...I did?" The boy's lips turned down. "How?"

"While Kid Flash may feel better able to assist in the making of a fire now, he wasn't so close to starvation before that he couldn't have managed without the snack. If you had decided to give him something despite that, you could have reserved a portion of the total supply. Then you would have food for yourself or for both of you to split later if the emergency intensified."

"Oh." Robin dwelt on that for a second. "...I guess I could have done it that way," he conceded eventually. "But...I dunno, KF's _always_ going to be hungrier than me, no matter what. Plus, I can't tell the future. For all I know you'll be here in the morning to pick us up. In that case, wouldn't I be better off keeping him in a good mood and helpful so we can get the basic stuff set up?"

"As you said, you can't tell the future. Therefore, the best answer is to always prepare for the worst. What if I _didn't_ show up tomorrow morning, or the next, or the next?"

"...Huh. I guess I see that, but...I don't know if I could withhold food from a hungry friend. That just seems mean."

"Those are the kinds of tough decisions that your survival – or those of your friends – may rely on someday, Robin," Batman intoned. There was a moment of silence, and he saw the Flashes exchange an uneasy glance. "...While you think about that, go and gather wood for the fire. Stick close to camp, and make sure you bring enough dry tinder."

"...Okay." Looking pensive and slightly downcast, the boy started into the trees.

Just before he stepped out of the clearing, KF caught up to him. "Sorry, bro," Batman heard him apologize. "I wasn't trying to get you in trouble..."

They were out of earshot after that, and he turned to the pile of gear waiting to be dealt with. "We should lay out the bedding while they're gone."

"You mean you're not going to make them cover up with leaves and grass to stay warm?" Flash asked without so much as a trace of his usual jocularity.

"...No," he ground out. "I see no need for that." That wasn't strictly true – Alfred had insisted on the sleeping bags, and Bruce had agreed with the butler – but there was no reason for the other man to know so much.

"Oh. I'm surprised." A terse second passed. "...Don't you think you're taking this a bit too seriously?"

He straightened from where he had bent to retrieve the bedroll Robin had carted in. "It's their lives, Flash. How much less seriously would you like me to take it?"

The other man sighed. "Look, I get that this is about training, okay? And I agree, there are some basic skills that they need to have. But it's also a camping trip, and they're _kids. _They're just kids, Bruce," he pushed. "Don't glare at me, no one's around to hear us. Besides, I won't do it again. But...just loosen up on the doom and gloom, would you? Can't you make some of the learning fun instead of letting it feel like they're going to die if they don't get everything right the first time?"

"They _could_ die if they don't get it right the first time in a real situation."

"I know that. More importantly, so do they. They're not stupid, man. Besides, Robin is soaking in absolutely _everything_ that comes out of your mouth. I don't know why you can't see that, but he is. Even when he's arguing with you, he's just trying to understand better."

"I know that," he growled.

"Then you know that you don't need to pound this stuff into his head." Flash gave him a pitying look. "I know you want to protect him from everything you possibly can – I'm right on that page with you, trust me – but lecturing him for sharing emergency rations? Seriously? And I'm not just saying that because it's _my_ kid he was sharing with; it's the principle. This is supposed to be a fun weekend, not a depressing glimpse into the void. So...yeah." He paused. "Is any of this making an impact, or am I wasting my breath? Because I know that's a distinct possibility with you."

_Listen to him,_ Bruce spoke up in the back of his head. _He's_ _right._

_You said you wouldn't interfere this weekend,_ Batman snarled.

_ Yeah, and you said you wouldn't go overboard. Flash is __right__; this is supposed to be fun training. Did it look to you like kiddo was having fun just now? Because it didn't to me, and that's a problem. Training is fine; misery is not. Figure yourself out._

The vigilante grimaced and stared after the pair whose distant voices could be heard through the trees. He still didn't think he was in the wrong to be exposing them bluntly to the harsh realities of a backwoods survival situation, but he didn't want to make the tasks distasteful, either. Maybe, he considered, he could lighten the load a little. He hadn't intended to suck all of the enjoyment from their activity, it was just that doing so seemed to be a particular skill of his. Robin was usually good at replacing the joy he naturally overshadowed, but this time the child had fallen short. _Damn it,_ he cursed himself as he recalled the unhappy expression on his partner's face a few minutes before. _I put that look there._

_Yeah. You did._

_ I get it, thank you. Back off._

_ Are you going to fix it?_

_ ...Yes._ He wasn't entirely sure how, but he'd manage. "...I may have been a bit...over-realistic," he admitted through pursed lips. "Understandably so, however."

"Sure," Flash nodded. "Understandably so. But still over the top."

"...We could build the fire pit after we've secured the gear. It would save a little time when they return."

"I figure they can probably remember to dig a hole for their fire without actually having to dig this particular one." The other man gave him a faint smile. "Welcome back to the land of not being an asshole."

"...Mm." Bending over to hide the strange upward wiggle his lips tried to do in response to that, he grabbed both sets of bedrolls and chucked one at Flash. "Quit rubbing your knack for child care in my face and make your bed," he ordered without ire.

Catching the bag, the speedster smirked. "I've got no problem with that. Just remember that you have to lie down in whatever it is you make, huh?"

It wasn't bad advice, and if he wanted to be honest with himself it was a lesson he had a tendency to forget sometimes. "...I'll keep that in mind," he muttered as he carried his and Robin's blankets to their home for the next two nights.

"What's that? You not only had a rational, adult conversation with someone else, but you actually took something out of it? It's a camping trip miracle! I wish I could have recorded this stuff; none of the others will _ever_ believe me..."

Batman paused on his hands and knees. "...Flash."

"Yeah?"

"Shut up."

"Heh," came a good natured laugh. "I'll try, bud, but I'm not making any guarantees."

"I expected none." _No guarantees,_ he sighed, pushing the first rolled blanket down towards the tapered end of the shelter. _That's what makes this world so terrible. _He backed out to retrieve the makings of the second bunk and caught sight of his son traipsing into camp with an armful of wood and a restored smile on his face. _And so beautiful,_ he allowed, sending the boy an approving nod when their eyes met. _So terribly beautiful..._

* * *

**Author's Note: I hope you're all enjoying our little forest foray so far! For those who are interested, I've posted a picture on my blog of the sort of shelters our heroes built. I'll post a general layout of their camp as a whole once I have a scanner at my disposal tomorrow. Happy reading!**


	7. Chapter 7

**Author's Note: This chapter turned out much longer than I anticipated, which is why it's posting in the afternoon instead of the morning. I also posted the map I promised on my blog yesterday, for those who are interested. Happy reading!**

* * *

After the nutrition tablet debacle, Robin was expecting to be driven hard for the rest of the weekend. He knew his mentor thought it had been short-sighted of him to give away all of his emergency rations, but he couldn't make himself agree entirely. _KF's not hungry anymore,_ he shrugged as the other boy zipped ahead to a promising tree. _That's worth it, I think._ It would be better to starve to death knowing that he'd done everything he could for those he cared about than to be a miser, deny his friend food, and possibly still end up just as dead, he decided.

It would be best to avoid sharing that conclusion with Batman, however, so he simply smiled and said nothing as he started a pile of dry brush back at camp. The slight nod of approval he was sent after the first delivery was surprising, but what he found when he brought his third load made him outright doubt his eyes. "...What are you guys doing?" he inquired, stopping work to approach the two men who were kneeling on the ground.

"Building a fire ring," the black-clad figure answered.

"Oh." Mild embarrassment filled him for having asked something so obvious. He knew what a fire pit looked like – heck, he'd helped build his fair share with the circus, gathering rocks and putting them in a circle when the nights were chilly but no one could stand to be cooped up in their trailers – but with Batman it was usually better to check. What appeared to be a fire ring might just as well have turned out to be the launch pad for a secret miniature satellite or something equally as awesome. "Okay."

"...Robin, what are you doing?" came from over his shoulder a minute later. Dropping the flat piece of wood he'd been using as a scraper, he craned his neck to find both adults staring at him. _Aw, what'd I do now?!_

"I'm...making KF and I's fire pit," he answered, gulping. "I mean...wasn't I supposed to? We need one, right?"

Flash shot Batman a look that the boy couldn't read. That mystery was nothing, however, in comparison to the bolt of guilt that sprinted across the mouth beneath the cowl. Before he could do more than begin to cock his head at it, his mentor's expression cleared. "You don't have to make your own fire pit," he was informed quietly. "You and Kid Flash may use this one with us."

"Oh! Oh," he repeated, blushing and feeling even sillier than before. Hadn't he _just_ been thinking that it was better to double check than to assume? Chastising himself, he gave a weak smile. "I guess I'll go get some more wood, then."

"No. There's plenty. You have something else to do right now." Rising, Batman brushed loose dirt from his knees and turned to Flash. "Do you want to utilize starting the fire as an opportunity for Kid Flash to practice compartmentalization?"

"Uh...sure," the speedster agreed. "Getting to go fast _and_ lighting something on fire? He'll love that. Works for me."

"Good. Robin...come with me."

He followed, confused but not eager to make things worse by arguing. "Where are we going?" he asked when they had walked for several minutes in as straight of a line as the forest would allow.

"Back to the clearing we landed in."

He stopped cold. "You're not...you're not sending me home, are you?" he whispered. _You said we could use your fire pit, and you wouldn't say that if you were sending me away, but...why else would we go there right now? You called the plane back, didn't you? _His eyes grew hot. _I don't want to go home! Let me try again, please! I'll do better!_

"What?" The man retraced his steps, and Robin felt hidden eyes examining him. A massive sigh was heaved, and a second later a hand landed on his shoulder. "...No, I'm not sending you home. Why would you think so?"

"I...I dunno." He sniffled as shame crept in over his panic. "I guess because I screwed up?"

"Mm...you made a decision that might – or might not – affect your ability to survive long-term in the situation we're acting out. It wasn't the wisest choice, but..." He paused. "...That's what training is for, Robin. It's an opportunity for you to make mistakes and try out options in a semi-controlled environment. Do you understand?"

"I do," he nodded, peering at him, "but...um..."

"'Um' what?"

"Did you just figure that out, like _just_ now? Cause..." He scuffed his boot against the soft moss of the forest floor. "Well, it kind of sounded like you were realizing it as you said it. You know what I mean, when someone sounds like that?"

The fingers on his shoulder jerked in surprise, and he knew he'd hit the nail on the head. "...You have a better ear for tones than I realized," a roundabout answer was given. "Perhaps once you've finished mastering Spanish we'll start you on Mandarin."

Robin smirked, suddenly feeling much better. "So...yes, then?"

Batman's lips twitched upwards for the space of a breath. "Your aptitude has been already been noted," he said, rising. His hand slid back until the boy felt it between his shoulder blades, gently guiding him forward. "Now, let's finish our task before your friend gets hungry again."

Twenty minutes later he bounded back into camp with four long stems in his hands. "KF," he called out joyfully, "look, we get to cook our own food!"

"Duuuude," the redhead gasped, vanishing from the fire ring and appearing at his side. "No way! For real?"

"For real! That's what these are for!" He brandished the sticks over his head, shaking them in his excitement. "We cut them out of willow trees, see? And then we shaved one end and sharpened it. Batman showed me how. Mine aren't as neat as his," he observed, comparing the branches, "but isn't that awesome?!"

"It would be," KF replied sadly, "if we were going to have some way to cook."

Robin frowned. "...What do you mean?"

"...I can't make a fire. I'm _terrible_ at compartmentawhatsit. Crap! See, I can't even say it!"

"Ooh..." His mood fell to match his friend's. "Well...that's okay," he gave him an encouraging nudge. "We'll just figure out another way."

"I told you he wouldn't be mad," Flash called. "Compartmentalization is hard, Kid. Don't feel bad about not getting it the first time."

"...You thought I'd be mad?" Robin asked, latching onto the elder speedster's first comment. "Why?" _That's weird, bro,_ he bit back. _I've never been mad at you. Not really, at least._

"Well...it's the simulation. I mean, if we can't make fire we could totally, you know...die."

"Yeah, but we _can _make fire, bro. Here, hold these." Passing the roasting forks over, he reached into his belt. "I know they're here somewhere...aha!" Yanking out an almost-flat plastic envelope no wider than two of his fingers, he presented it proudly. "Matches!"

"...You just carry those around with you everywhere? Why didn't we just use those to start with?!"

"I don't know. I guess so you could practice making just your hands go fast. But Batman says you never know when you'll need to light a torch or...well...blow something up," he shrugged, "so we carry matches. This little pouch thing is waterproof, too, so they're good even if you have to swim or get wet some other way."

"That's good. Now we won't die. I still wish _I _could have started the fire, though."

"You can! Just use these, I don't mind."

"...You're sure?"

"Totally! Just be careful; we only have three tries, and after that we'll be in _major_ trouble."

The fluffy pile of tinder in the middle of the ring all but exploded when the first flickering stick was held to it. Both boys began to pile bigger fuel on, but after a moment the bright flame withered and fell back. "Oh, no," KF moaned. "We killed it!"

"...I know what we did wrong, I think," Robin broached, thinking back to the dozens of blazes he had seen lit when he was younger. While he'd never been permitted to feed the fire, he recalled the care with which others had fed each stick into the inferno. _Tanti said fire is like a living thing, _he mused. _It has to breathe. _"It needs more air. We're smothering it. It's like we're stop-drop-and-rolling it to death."

"...So do we take stuff off of it, or...?"

"I guess we have to."

"Uh, no," Flash intervened. "_You_ don't take stuff off of it. I will." Moving forward from where he'd been watching, he removed the majority of what they had placed in the pit. "There, go ahead and try again. Everything I grabbed seemed to be out, but be careful anyway. I don't want either Batman _or_ Iris trying to take my head if one of you burns yourself."

"But we're both wearing heat-resistant gloves," Robin pointed out. "We _can't_ burn ourselves."

"Let's not test that theory," Batman rumbled from behind him. "Just because your gear is capable of protecting you from high temperatures doesn't mean you should expose yourself to them unnecessarily."

"Got more wood, I see," Flash commented.

He turned to look. "Didn't we get enough?" he asked, concerned that he'd dropped the ball in yet another area. For all that Batman had said the whole purpose of training was to make mistakes in a controlled environment, he still wanted to get as much right as he could.

"You got plenty. I only brought larger logs because they'll require less frequent replacement."

"Oh. Okay." His worry assuaged, he directed his attention back to their project. "Look!" he cried out as a breeze ghosted through camp. "Did you see that?! I think it's still alive, KF! We can save it!"

"We didn't kill it?!"

"Nope! Hurry, give it some of that bark!"

Ten minutes later they sat back and let the heat of the eager young flames bathe their faces. Batman and Flash joined them, sitting on the grass somewhat uncomfortably. Dusk teased the sky overhead, painting the few clouds that were visible over the trees a faded pink. The air was all forest and smoke and faint sweat, silent except for the crackle of the hungry blaze and the faint gurgle of the creek nearby.

No one spoke, and Robin tried to remember when he had last felt this exact sort of contentment. As much as he had enjoyed his night out on the lawn with Bruce the previous summer, it had been too tame to qualify. No, his eyebrows drew down, he had to go back to before in order to find this feeling. Before, when he'd never even heard of Batman and his parents were still alive to inhale the primordial melange of camp with him...

"Ow!" A distant prick behind his jaw snapped him out of his memory before it could fully manifest. It was probably for the best, he thought fleetingly as he reached for the sting, since he didn't want to start crying in the middle of training.

"...Mosquito?" Batman queried.

"I think so." He brushed at the spot and felt something flee his touch. A small bump remained under his skin, promising to itch like crazy later. "...Yeah. It was a mosquito."

"Mm." The man grimaced. "They'll come out now that the temperature is dropping. Are they bothering either of you?" he asked the speedsters.

Flash and KF glanced at one another. "Nope," they answered simultaneously.

"No fair," Robin complained mildly.

"It's their metabolisms," his mentor explained. "If I had more skin exposed the insects would be targeting me, too. The smoke from the fire will help some, but..." He looked around the clearing, seemingly searching for something. "Here. Follow me. There's something else you can do to make them leave you alone."

"Do you have special bat-repellant or something?" KF giggled.

"Huh-uh," Robin replied. "Not for mosquitoes, at least."

"We have it," Batman corrected. "It just isn't part of our standard equipment. It's designed for tropical missions where malaria and other diseases are a major concern."

"...Kinda wish we'd brought it anyway."

"It's not necessary. There's another solution." With that he walked into the swiftly-darkening woods, leaving the boy to scramble after him. They traversed the narrow strip of forest between their camp and the water and stepped out onto a trace of brown sand. "...Over there."

He walked as far as he could before the bank ran out beneath his feet. When trees blocked his path, he stopped. "Do you want me to go back in the woods, or...?"

"No. This is what we're looking for." Batman crouched, his gauntleted fingers dancing across the small white flowers growing on the fringe of the open area. "This is yarrow. Note the fuzz on the stems; there are other plants that look similar to this that are poisonous. It's important that you remember the difference."

"Yarrow?" Robin peered at it in the semi-darkness. "Oh, hey, I think I've seen that before! Tanti-" He broke off. "...Sorry. Civilian stuff."

The man didn't respond for a second. "What did she use it for?" he inquired finally.

"Um...she made tea out of it sometimes." _For mom,_ he swallowed. "And...I remember once she was watching me and I skinned my knee really bad. It was bleeding kind of a lot, so she put something on it. I _think_ it was yarrow. I don't know, though; it's been, um...a while."

"Hmm...that fits some of its more common uses. What we'll be using it for tonight, however, is insect repellant." He began to strip leaves from the spindly plants, and after a moment Robin followed suit. "...Now grind them up in your hands."

"Eww...it's all sticky," he wrinkled his nose as small pieces of greenery clung to his fingers.

"How can you feel that through your gloves?"

"I can just tell, that's all. Can't you?"

"Yes. But if you think that's gross, you won't like the next step."

He hesitated. "...What is it?"

"Spit on it."

His jaw dropped. "You want me to spit on myself? What would...you know who...say?"

"He'd say that it's better to spit into your hands and make bug repellant than to come home covered in bites."

"...Okay, yeah, I can see that. So...spit?"

"Yes, Robin. Spit." To drive the point home, the man lobbed a ball of saliva into his own palm. "...You know how to spit properly, right?"

"Yeah. I'm just not normally allowed to." His mother had had a cow when she'd learned what her husband had taught him to do, he recalled, and had instantly forbidden the action. The moratorium on spitting had continued when he'd come to the Manor, and now half a lifetime of restriction held him back. After a moment's thought, he shrugged. It wasn't as if Alfred was there to see him hock on himself, and technically he was just following orders. As for his mother...well, it was best not to think about what her reaction would have been. Giving in, he spat.

"Now rub it all together until it's mixed, then smear it everywhere that isn't covered by your costume. Don't get it in your eyes or your mouth."

A light spicy odor met his nose as he raised the paste to his face. "Wow. This stuff smells kind of nice."

"Not to the mosquitoes."

"Is that why it keeps them away?"

"Yes. There is a chemical in the plant that repels them."

"So...why did we have to spit? I'm not complaining or anything, but it's kind of weird."

"The additional moisture strengthens the smell of the plant and makes it adhere to your skin better."

"Oh. That makes sense." Finished swiping the smelly stuff on himself, he scratched at the bite behind his jaw. "All done!"

"Good." Batman, having already completed his own application, looked down at their hands. "...We'll wash the rest of this off before we eat."

"Wait, we're allowed to spit out here but we still have to wash our hands for dinner?" Robin joked.

"Yes." A faint smirk appeared. "Your point is taken, but even if I was certain that it's safe for children to ingest yarrow you have no complaints that would make it necessary. So wash your hands."

"Okay," he agreed. Moving to the creek, they bent down and scrubbed the pads of their gloves with wet sand. "...Oh, hey!"

"What?" Batman tensed beside him as if the exclamation had come while they were on patrol.

"It's not an emergency," Robin assured him quickly, "it's just that we forgot to get water for camp. Should we take some back with us, do you think?"

"What do _you_ think?"

"Um..." It felt like a trick question, but he couldn't figure out why. "Well, we have to have water, so...yes? Although I guess it's just right here," he allowed. "We could just come get it when we need it."

"You're forgetting something."

He _was_ forgetting something, he realized all of a sudden. "Crap, it's not safe, is it? The water? It could be full of bacteria and stuff. I remember reading that now."

"Correct. Did you read about how to kill the bacteria?"

"I did, but..." But that only brought up other problems. Everything he'd studied over the past few days had stated that the best way to purify water was to boil it or add certain chemicals. He knew that they didn't carry the right agents in their belts, though, and he certainly didn't walk around with a pot bouncing on his hip. There had been something about using a tarp and the sun, but there was no room for plastic sheeting in his usual kit, either. "...I don't think I have any way to do it," he confessed. "If we had pieces of the plane we could make something, but-"

"But the plane went over a cliff, so that's not an option."

"Right. Crud, how are we supposed to drink anything without getting sick?!" Thinking of something he'd seen a man with a funny name talk about on television, he shuddered. "...I _really_ don't want to drink my own pee, Batman," he pleaded.

"I...don't think that will be necessary this weekend, Robin," his mentor said, sounding disturbed. "I'm not saying that you'll never be in a situation where that is your only option, but you'll know if and when that time comes. There's no need to drill beforehand."

There was something in his voice that made the boy suspect there was a story to be told. "Have _you_ ever...you know? Had to?"

"I was made to practice that particular...skill. The unpleasantness of that experience is why we'll be focusing on other options during this trip."

"...Eww." Drawing on what little he knew of Batman's training, he took a guess as to whose idea that had been. "...Ra's is mean. I already knew that, obviously, but still..._yuck._ It was him that made you do it, right?"

"Correct. It's good to know that you _can_ do something if you absolutely must – drinking urine included – but I don't think it's necessary for you to have prior experience with that kind of a last resort so long as you are aware that it _is_ a final option."

"Thank you," Robin said with a deep sense of gratitude. "I'm sure KF would say thank you, too, because that's _gross._"

"...Yes, yes it is. On the note of your friend," the man straightened, "he's likely started complaining of hunger again in our absence. Are you ready to eat?"

"Um...are you giving us food? Because we don't have any of our own." He'd meant to ask earlier, but he'd gotten so caught up in crafting their willow skewers and building the fire that he'd spaced it.

"For tonight, yes. Tomorrow you'll be gathering your own meals, but I was...instructed...to ensure that you were well-fed this evening."

The boy grinned. _Good old Alfred. _He knew that Batman might very well have made them go hungry as part of the simulation had the butler not intervened. _I'll have to give him an extra hug when we get home_. "Okay. But what about the water? We never figured that out."

"I want you to sleep on that and see if you come up with anything."

"But...I'm kind of thirsty _now_." He hadn't noticed before how his tongue was beginning to stick to the roof of his mouth, but once he became aware of it he could barely focus on anything else.

"I have something for you to drink with your dinner. That should hold you through morning."

"Hooray!" Popping up from his crouch, he began to skip back towards the trees. "C'mon, let's eat!"

"Wait."

He slid to a stop. "...Huh?"

The last of the light had gone out of the day while they were talking, and Batman was little more than a caped shadow as he drew near. "Robin..."

He shuffled around to face him more directly. "What is it, Batman?" he asked, concerned. "You sound kind of sad. What's wrong?"

"...I just want to make sure that you're enjoying your training."

"Of course I am! It's really neat," he grinned.

"You aren't upset about anything that's happened today?"

"Um..." The fact that his parents kept coming up in his head wasn't much fun, but even if he could have safely talked about that here he probably wouldn't have. It was better to leave things until they were home, where he could spill everything at once, cry if he wanted to, and then let Bruce cheer him up. Batman wouldn't cuddle, he knew, and on top of that the man might be disappointed at his failure to keep his civilian life separate from his mask. _I already almost cried on the plane, and then I mentioned Tanti, too,_ he frowned. _I know he's not mad at me for not getting everything right, but I don't want to __make__ him mad, either, so...I can wait. I can try, at least. _"I'm okay. Honest."

"Mm...well, if you're certain."

"I am." He had to be strong, he told himself; this was supposed to be a survival situation, after all.

"...Good. Let's return to camp, then. We have an early day tomorrow; we need to eat and go to bed."

"Okay." The hand that had guided him earlier landed between his shoulder blades again, urging him towards the faint glow that gave away the fire beyond the foliage. "I'm excited for tomorrow," he shared. "Like, _super_ excited. Get it?"

"I get it," Batman replied without laughing. "I'm looking forward to our activities as well."

"I'll do better tomorrow, I promise."

"...You didn't do poorly today, Robin."

A happy buoyancy filled him at those words, rising from his toes to the top of his head. _I want to hear that every day,_ he determined as they entered the trees. _I'll do good tomorrow. I'll do my very, very best. _

_ I'll make you proud, Batman._


	8. Chapter 8

"Oh, good, you're back," KF sighed when they emerged from the forest. "So now that the bugs aren't bothering you, is it dinner time?"

"Jeez, Kid, don't let them sit down before you start in or anything," Flash joked.

"It's okay," Robin assured him. "I'm hungry, too. Plus, if he'd waited until we sat down then we'd just have to get up again to get the food."

"Point taken. In that case, what's for eats?"

"...Nothing, if you're going to use such terrible grammar," Batman told him dryly.

"Blame my empty stomach and my plebeian upbringing," the grown speedster waved away. "But seriously, what are we having?"

"Mm...Robin, I require your assistance."

He'd just settled down beside Kid Flash to whisper about how he'd had to spit on himself to make bug dope, but he leaped back to his feet at his mentor's call. "What's up?"

"Open the latch on the far end of the box. I'll get the other side."

"Okay!" He scrambled for the large bin and flipped his assigned fastener opened. "Ready." They lifted the lid to reveal several smaller containers. "...Are those, like, giant MREs?"

"Those are bear cans."

"Beer cans?" His eyebrows shot up. "That's a _lot_ of beer."

"I'm game," Flash volunteered.

"Yuck," KF wrinkled his nose.

"_Bear_ cans," Batman repeated. "Not beer, bear. They're designed to keep animals out of your food. You wouldn't have the actual cans in the scenario, but there are ways to try and secure your supplies without them. We'll discuss that after dinner. For now, go ahead and open the one closest to you."

"Sure. Oof, it's heavier than it looks..." He succeeded in lifting it out of the bin despite its weight, then began turning it around and tugging on both ends. "Um...how am I supposed to do that? This thing is glued together or something..."

"Look closer."

"...Okay..." His eyebrows knit as he studied the container. _There's a seam like would be under a lid, but nothing wants to move._ _So...huh_. His confusion went on for almost a full minute before he got on the right track. Batman had said that they were supposed to keep bears out of stuff_,_ he mused. Obviously _people_ managed to get them open, though, or there would be a lot more news stories about starved hikers, so maybe he just needed to figure out what people had that bears didn't. _Tools,_ the answer struck him. _We have tools, and bears don't!_

As he reached for his micro-tool he saw a satisfied smirk cross the caped man's lips. Riding high on that success, it didn't take him long to determine that he needed to loosen the screws on the top of the canister in order to pull the lid off. "Okay," he glanced at KF when that was done. "Ready?"

"Dude, I'm starving! Let's see what we've got!"

"All right, it's-holy hot dogs! It's _hot dogs_!" he sputtered. "No way! Batman..." He stared at his mentor, his eyes bulging wide under his mask. "Is...do we...are they _really_...?"

"They're really hot dogs, yes."

"And...we're allowed to eat them? I mean...you-know-who doesn't mind?"

"I agreed to make sure that you had ample sustenance. I made no promises as to what form that sustenance would take."

Taking that to mean that Alfred had no clue what they were going to be eating tonight, Robin grinned. "This is _amazing. _You're the best._"_

KF approached and peered down into the dark interior of the bear can. "...Is that _all_ hot dogs?" he asked hopefully.

"Yes," Batman told him. "The buns and condiments are in the middle canisters, and there is bottled water is the last one."

"And the containers look like they'd make great stools," Flash judged, coming forward to snag one. "I've got the buns. Where are the sticks?"

"I'll get them!" Robin bolted for where he had propped their skewers against one of the shelters. "Here you go! Gosh, I'm so excited. I haven't cooked over a fire in a whole year!"

"...You've done this before?" KF asked, his hand faltering as it reached for a roasting fork.

"Yup!" He paused, sensing his friend's hesitation. "...Have you?"

"Umm...no." The redhead's cheeks approached the color of his hair.

"Oh. That's okay, it's easy! C'mon, grab a hot dog and I'll show you how."

It would occur to him later that he should have done more to help unpack. Flush with the prospect of getting to teach his compatriot how to roast hot dogs and then being allowed to eat said dogs, however, he took no notice as Batman and Flash set everything out. It was only as he approached a painful level of satiation that he slowed down and looked around. "I'm done," he announced. "Should I keep cooking so you guys don't have to stop eating so much?"

"Yef!" the younger speedster all but shouted around a half-demolished bun. "Beft bro efer!"

Flash winced and swallowed. "Kiiid," he groaned hopelessly, then dove back into his meal.

"Thorry." Kid Flash, too, swallowed. "I said 'yes,' and then 'best bro ever,' because you totally are if you're really going to do that."

He beamed. "What kind of a friend would I be if I let you go hungry when I could help?"

"Robin," Batman broke in.

"Huh?"

"Are you sure you're done? This may be the last heavy meal you have before Sunday."

"I feel like I'm going to pop," he answered frankly. "I'm surprised my belt still fits."

"...Very well."

"Sweet!" Cheering, KF handed over his skewer. "Thanks, Rob! Maybe now I'll get to have one that's cooked all the way through." There was a moment of silence as everyone stared at him. "What? I'm _hungry,_ guys! It's hard to wait for it to be done."

"Maybe we should have looked for forked sticks," Robin pondered aloud as he balanced a food-loaded stem on each knee. "Then you could have cooked two at once."

"Dude, that's genius!"

"I'll remember next time we go camping. That way you won't eat half-raw stuff."

Hot dog after hot dog went onto the fire and came back off in order to be devoured. Batman, who had been breaking small pieces off of his portions and discreetly tucking them into his mouth as if he didn't want anyone to see what he was doing, was the second of the group to stop eating. The other two went on and on like they would never stop, and Robin watched in awe as a pile of empty plastic packaging grew where there had previously been the makings of a feast.

Finally, Kid Flash gave an enormous belch and conceded victory. "You win. I couldn't swallow another bite for at least twenty minutes."

"Um...there are still two left, though," Robin pointed at the sticks he was still studiously tending.

"Are they the last two?" Flash inquired.

"Yes."

"Then I'll eat them unless someone else wants them." A short while later he brushed off his hands and stretched. "Mm-mm...good stuff, Batman. How many packages was that, anyway?"

"I purchased ten, and they're all gone."

"Eighty dogs? That's not too shabby. How many did the two of you eat?"

"I had three," Robin volunteered. "I think you had five, right, Batman?"

"...Correct," the cowled figure replied, sounding less than pleased about having his count revealed. "That leaves nine packages between the two of you."

"I think that's a new record!" KF crowed.

"Um...no offense, but where do you even _put_ that much food?" Robin couldn't help but ask. Both of the speedsters had developed a faint roundness in their midsections since the start of the meal, but that wasn't enough space to accommodate everything they'd ingested. It made no sense to him, and while he'd wondered about it before now this seemed like the perfect opportunity to solve the mystery.

"No offense taken," Flash answered amiably. "Let's just say that fast metabolisms like ours are both a blessing and a curse. On the one hand, we can each eat three dozen hot dogs and buns in one sitting with only mild discomfort."

"That's the awesome part," Kid Flash broke in with another burp. "'Scuse me."

"On the other hand," the man continued, "we're both going to require some serious alone time out in the woods around daybreak."

"That's the crappy part. Literally."

Robin smiled at the joke even as he pitied its maker. "Ugh. That doesn't sound like fun."

"Two sides of the same coin, I'm afraid," Flash shrugged. "It could be better, but it could also be a _lot_ worse."

"Yeah, like if we'd had Mexican," KF opined.

"As delightful as this conversation is," Batman said with a frown, "we have a few things left to do before bed."

"Aw, bed already? We stay up way later than this on patrol nights!"

"We have more training to do tomorrow, though," Robin nudged the boy beside him.

"And if Batman says you're going to need your rest to handle it, you'd better listen," Flash tacked on. "It's his training program, so he would know."

KF's mild protest faded. "...Okay."

After a lesson on how to bank the fire and a quick lecture about protecting one's food supplies from bears when there were no high-tech canisters to be had, the boys were hustled into their blankets. Robin watched through bleary eyes as the adults stood on the opposite side of the clearing and spoke in low voices that he couldn't make out. He could hear KF kicking in the next shelter, just like Flash had predicted. _I wonder if I ever do stuff like that_, he hummed to himself. After a meandering train of thought, he decided that he must not. Either Bruce or his parents would surely have said something about it before. Since no one had ever mentioned such a thing, he wrote it off.

Less easy to dismiss were the memories that the lingering scents in the air were dredging up. He could scarcely recall a campfire evening with the circus that hadn't ended in him falling asleep under a parental arm. It had been the same when he and Bruce had tented out on the lawn the previous summer. Tonight, though,...tonight would be different. _Batman doesn't cuddle,_ he recalled his earlier thought with a deep sigh. He had his reasons, he knew, and he respected them. As he lay on his bed of boughs with the heady reek of wood smoke clinging to him, though, he wished the man would make an exception, if only for one night.

He was still longing drowsily for a familiar touch when a shadow crept in beside him and lay down. "Hi," he breathed.

"...You're still awake."

"Yeah. I...I was _trying_ to sleep, honest."

"Mm." A beat passed. "Does your wakefulness have to do with when we landed, Robin?"

"Um..." The problem with that question was that the answer was both yes and no. "...Sort of? I don't know. A little. I'm sorry."

"Don't be sorry. Not for...civilian issues."

"You know what I was thinking of before?!" he asked, shocked. The two of them had a history of discerning the other's thoughts, it was true, but this was uncanny.

"No."

"...Oh."

"I just have a general idea."

"Oh! Um..." He bit his lip, torn. Tears, particularly those shed over his lost parents, were the one thing short of catastrophic injury that might drive his mentor to hold him while they were in costume. The risk of shaming the man or making him believe that his partner was unready for trips such as this one was too high to risk that, though. "Good," he finished lamely.

"Is that all it is? There's nothing else?"

"No, it's mostly just...that. Why?"

"You mentioned feeding your friends again during dinner."

"I did? Oh, yeah...huh. I didn't mean anything by it." He laughed all of a sudden. "It's funny, though."

"What is?"

"Well, you said earlier that giving KF my nutrition tablets was a bad decision. But then you brought a _ton_ of hot dogs, and let him and Flash eat ninety percent of them."

"...What's your point?"

"That you don't want to see your friends go hungry any more than I do."

"My decision to give away food won't endanger our lives. In the scenario we're dealing with this weekend, your decision to give away food might do exactly that."

"I dunno, Batman. You gave me _hot dogs_." He giggled. "Are you _sure_ that that decision won't come to a bad end once we get home to a certain person?"

"Not if that 'certain person' doesn't find out what we ate."

"But since the odds of that happening are about the same as the odds of you not finding me before I really _need_ my nutrition tablets..."

There was a moment of silence. "So what you're saying is that my providing hot dogs was potentially as ill-conceived a plan as you giving Kid Flash your emergency rations."

"Yup!"

"In the future, then, you should reserve your nutrient tabs and I should not buy hot dogs."

"...Wait, what?! No," Robin backpedaled. "I'm not saying that at all!"

"If they were both poor decisions, then the most obvious answer is to do the opposite next time, is it not?"

"I...you...but...crud," he sighed heavily. "Well, the hot dogs were good while they lasted..." A low, rumbling chuckle reached his ears. "...What was _that_? A bear?" he asked half-jokingly.

"Bears aren't known for their laughter, Robin."

"Neither is Batman."

"Sometimes one can't help but laugh at clever little birds."

"Not even you?"

"...Not even bears."

He smiled in the darkness as he concocted a possible solution to his lack of comforting contact. "...Batman?"

"Mm?"

"I was thinking...you know how bears hibernate in the winter?"

"Yes."

"Do you think...well...do you think the big bears curl up with the little bears when they do? I mean, those dens don't look very big, so they must, right?"

"It's likely. But it's summer now, so they aren't hibernating."

_Crap!_ Maybe, he thought as his plan began to slip away, the man would get the hint if he just kept rambling on about bears. "Um...well...what about if-"

An arm plunked down on top of him without warning. As happy as he was at the contact, it was so unexpected that he couldn't help but inquire about it. "...Batman?" he asked as he felt himself being pulled closer. A second low hum of amusement sounded, and five warm words were breathed against his hair.

"...Go to sleep, little bear."

The dark, the day, and the warm weight protecting him from the rest of the world took their toll with a vengeance, and he obeyed without another sound.


	9. Chapter 9

Batman woke to the sound of low whispers coming from the neighboring shelter. Sensing from their tone that he had time before the others crawled outside, he lay still and listened to the gentle breathing of the boy in his arms.

There had been no terrors during the night, and for that he was grateful. His partner had slept with a soundness that he, accustomed to being surrounded by enemies when he was living rough, could only envy. Perhaps, he reflected, he ought to speak to the youths about keeping someone on guard for the purposes of the simulation; as Robin had pointed out the previous afternoon, they might be being tracked by someone sinister. In such a situation, sleeping at the same time could get them killed.

Still, that would wait. There was no immediate reason to disturb the warm bundle snuggled against him. He woud have to get up soon, but not yet. Not now.

_I told you cuddling wasn't half bad,_ Bruce crowed.

_Mm. I recall you being more hyperbolic than that,_ he rebutted. _The words 'wonderful' and 'comforting' come to mind._

_Was I wrong?_

_ ...I didn't say that._

_So you admit it._

_ I didn't say that either._

_ No, but_- The rustling from the speedsters' abode increased suddenly. _Damn it, Barry. Can't you stay still for five more minutes?_

_Does that mean you're done?_

_...Yeah, okay. But only because he's getting up, which means you want to, too. I don't want your fear of someone seeing you being paternal to make you all cold towards Robin again. It's not fair to him, and it leaves me with a lot to make up for when the masks come off again._

_ As if you mind the latter._

_To quote you;_ _I didn't say that. But I do mind the pain it causes kiddo, and I know you do, too. So let's skip it, huh? _With that, Bruce retreated.

Batman grimaced in the darkness. It was true that he intended to keep anyone from seeing him sharing blankets with his protege in his current affectionate fashion. Even though Flash was one of the few to whom the sight wouldn't be a surprise, that was no excuse for being less vigilant around him. On the other hand, he was loathe to move from the warm nest their closeness had created. _Damn it,_ he echoed the billionaire's sentiments. _Five more minutes,_ _Flash. Go back to bed._

It was no good. The sound of a yawn and stamping feet filled the clearing, and if the other man was up it would take only a step or two for him to peek in at them. If Batman wanted to preserve his habits, he had to rise _now_.

He untangled himself from the boy with care. A faint pout appeared on the slumbering pixie face in the brief second after he pulled away, and he hesitated. The regret that sad expression caused him to feel was almost enough to draw him back down to the earth, regardless of what Flash might see as a result. After a moment of struggle, though, he merely leaned forward, tucked the child in, and brushed one gloved hand through the tousled dark locks above the domino mask. _Sleep tight a little longer, Robin,_ he bade him silently, then crawled out into the cool morning air. _I won't be far away._

Flash turned a sleepy grin on him as he emerged. "Mornin'."

"It is."

"Robin still asleep?"

"Yes. Did Kid Flash return to that state after your talk?"

"Heh...you heard that, huh?"

A nervous tone in the question suggested to Batman that he had been the topic of their conversation. "I heard your voices, but not the words," he admitted, curious if his compatriot would offer details. When none were given, the silences of the past weeks put their weight behind his tongue and forced out a further confession. "...I believe you're holding something against me, Flash." It hurt to say, but if there was a best time to confront the other man this was it. The children were sleeping, there was no one else to overhear for miles, and they had two more days to get through together. It had to be now.

The long sigh that sounded in response to his accusation was not a promising beginning. "I'm not mad at you or anything. I was a little irked yesterday, yeah, but you came around okay." He paused. "You're getting better at that, you know. Taking advice."

"...That doesn't address the issue."

"No, I...I know it doesn't. But...well, it's civilian stuff."

"Not all of it is."

"...What?" A surprised gaze was turned on him. "...Wait. Shit." With a self-derogatory chuckle, Flash crossed his arms. "I should have known better. After all, you're the 'goddamn Batman'. So cut me a break and tell me what you already found out, okay?"

"Fine. Why didn't you tell me about Kid Flash's achievement of vanishing speed?"

"I...ah, hell. Look...I can't really explain about that without going into the civilian stuff, and-"

"Then do it."

"...What?" The other man's eyebrows shot upward disbelievingly.

"I said, then _do_ it," Batman repeated.

"...Here?" Flash glanced around. "I mean, there aren't any ears to hear, but still...you actually want me to? _You_?"

"I thought I made that clear," he sniped. Despite his impatience, he understood the speedster's hesitation. Civilian problems were usually off-limits while they were in masks, and he had leveled enough glares at transgressors for Flash to know that. In a way he was pleased that the highly important lesson had taken hold; at the same time, the resultant delay was becoming annoying.

"But yesterday, when I said your name...?"

"Yes, yesterday I didn't want you to use my name. I still don't. But it seems unlikely that you can't explain the issue without that." He frowned. "...I want this out and done with. It's unpleasant and inconvenient, and it's eroding our common ground."

"...Wow. Huh."

"What is it?"

"Just...I guess I'm surprised that you care so much. I mean, you never seemed to before."

"Is that why you've kept Kid Flash's developments a secret from me? Because you thought I wouldn't care?" If the answer was yes, he supposed he deserved it. Nevertheless, a part of him hoped that that wasn't the only reason.

"No," Flash shook his head. "No, actually, it's...it's the opposite of that." He sighed and raised a hand to the back of his neck, squeezing as if there was a knot there. "It didn't start with his control of vanishing speed. The withholding information, I mean. It started with..." He trailed off, his expression uncertain.

"With the adoption."

"Um..."

"Many people adopt children every year, Flash. It's hardly an elite club."

"...Yeah, you have a point. And you're right. It _did_ start with the adoption." He sighed. "I felt bad about it. I _still_ feel bad about it. I mean, you've been through so much just trying to keep Robin, and here I get Kid permanently almost just by asking nicely. Add in the fact that I used your lawyer and you've got the recipe for a hearty guilt stew, you know? I meant to tell you, I really did. I knew you'd be glad, but I also knew it wasn't really fair. There were a hundred opportunities for me to say something, but...I kept looking for a way to do it that wouldn't hurt you, and I couldn't find one."

_That's because no painless way exists in this situation,_ he withheld. "And the vanishing speed development? What did that have to do with this?"

"If I had told you about that, I would have ended up telling you about the adoption. Hell, man, had the boys come up in conversation at all I would have spilled everything. That's why I might have seemed a little...distant, I guess, lately. It's just that I'm proud of how far Kid's come in the last year," Flash shrugged, unabashed. "I'm proud of him in general, and I knew I wouldn't be able to keep my mouth shut once I'd opened it."

"...Mm." There was no question whatsoever in Batman's mind that what he'd just been told was the truth. Even if he hadn't known the other man to be a terrible liar, there was a twinge of regret in his voice that validated every word. Knowing that he hadn't done anything to cause the breach was a surprisingly great relief; at the same time, though, it bothered him that Flash had been able to anticipate the pain his news would cause. It showed a disturbing level of familiarity, one that he would not have thought it possible for a man of Barry Allen's observational capabilities to reach in a mere six months of personal acquaintance.

The irony of his dual emotions did not escape him, but rather drew a sick smirk across his lips. _I wanted to know what had happened because I get something out of this strange relationship we have,_ he mused, _and yet I find it troublesome that he knows enough about me to have predicted my reaction to his good fortune. _Before he could dwell on the dichotomy for too long, Flash spoke again.

"I _wanted_ to tell you, you know. Not just because I'm happy about how things worked out, but because I felt bad about keeping it from you. It wasn't a very friendly thing to do, and...well, I like to think we qualify as friends. I know that's not really something that Batman has, or even necessarily wants, but if the shoe fits, you know?"

"Every relationship has to fall somewhere on the scale of human interactions," he answered slowly, staring into the dark forest in order to avoid eye contact with the man beside him. "...I suppose your proposed term for us fits better than any of the others that commonly appear on the spectrum."

"Heh. That was the most roundabout admission of friendship that I've ever heard," Flash laughed, "but I'll take it. That aside, though...I'm glad you know everything now. I don't mind keeping things from my enemies, but I prefer to be as open as is safe with my friends. Even if they don't exactly reciprocate."

Batman felt his elbow be nudged, and replied with a neutral grunt. "The world would be a much louder place if we were all as...'open'...as you are."

"True. Maybe that's why I need a silent, broody friend, is to remind me of the merit of quiet."

"Maybe." He glanced over his shoulder at the low bivys in which their proteges still slept. "...It's good that you agreed to come this weekend. The boys needed some time together."

"Yeah. I know I hesitated on saying yes, but I was thinking about the other stuff. You're right, though; they're having a blast. It's good." He paused. "Kid asked me what the plan is for today."

"Did you tell him?" He'd given the other man a run-down of the day's activities the night before in case there were any objections. It occurred to him now that they might have addressed the adoption at that time, but he let it go. What was done was done, and Robin had turned out to be awake last night in any case. Things were better as they'd turned out.

"No. You said you wanted it to be a surprise to them."

"Good. And I do." He tilted his head back and found a hint of daylight lightening the sky. "We should wake them. There's no reason to waste the morning, and they have a lot to do today."

"Already? It seems early. Can't we let them sleep in a little? They're already going to sleep like logs tonight if we get through everything you've got lined out for them."

_I hope so,_ Batman didn't say. Two nights running without nightmares for either of them would be remarkable. "We'll get through everything," he said instead. "There's still a great deal for them to learn. Besides, the sooner we get them up and ready the sooner they can start looking for breakfast." The mention of food, he knew, would light a fire under the speedster's enthusiasm.

"Now _that's_ an excellent argument. I can get behind that."

"Then we'll meet at the fire in twenty minutes and get started." By then there would be more light in the trees, but not enough to have burned away the night's dew. The speedsters, he knew, would leave camp for a bit right off and give him a few more precious moments alone with his son. Then they could begin the day's training, and he could continue to be awed by Robin's clever way of darting around the obstacles he set before them. The thought was almost enough to make him grin.

"Twenty minutes? Sounds good to me." With that Flash clapped him on the shoulder and headed for the shelters, his step sounding lighter on the half-trampled grass of the clearing than it had a short while before.

Batman hesitated before turning to rouse Robin. It was an unusual thing for him to have a spare moment in which to stop and appreciate the end of the night, and he seized it now. In the trees a pair of birds called to one another brightly, their song soundtracking the beginning of the new day. The few high clouds visible overhead were scuttling quickly westward, seeming to run from the rising sun. That was all there was in the world, it seemed; the forest, the heavens, and the spartan camp at his back. It wasn't an unpleasant image of the world in the least.

Twin gusts of wind rushed past him suddenly, branches waving in their wake once they passed into the woods. The happy chirping stopped, and a squirrel chittered in anger somewhere in the distance. Alone in the clearing, Batman smirked in mild amusement. _Damn speedsters, anyway._

Turning away from his reverie, he caught sight of his son, still curled under blankets but with one arm thrown over the empty space beside him. How many more times, he wondered as his mood slipped back towards contemplation, would they have an opportunity to watch the day begin together from behind their masks? The nature oftheir work meant that the number had to be low, he was sure. He watched him sleep for another few seconds, then started forward.

The sun was coming up, and rare things were not to be wasted.


	10. Chapter 10

**Author's Note: It's a short chapter today, but an important one for the Spark universe as a whole. Happy reading!**

* * *

"...Robin."

"Mmmph..."

"...Robin." The boy's forehead squinched. "It's morning."

"Make it go away..."

He almost laughed. How often in the past would the power to hold the dawn back just an hour longer have been of use? The number was a high one, and there were lives wrapped up in the counting that he preferred not to think about. "I lack that ability," he said before he could dwell on past nights for too long.

The boy gave a heavy sigh. "Oookay. I'm up."

"Good." There was no movement. "...Robin?"

"I'm up, honest! And I'm thirsty." He paused. "...Do we have any bottled water left?"

"No. Even if we did, I wouldn't be able to give it to you."

"The simulation?"

"The simulation."

"...Crud." Shrugging off his blanket, Robin sat up. "Um...I still don't know how we're going to boil water without a container," he stated with a troubled frown. "That's...that's not good."

"No, it's not good. But fortunately this is training, not a real emergency."

"Does that mean you're going to tell me how to do it?"

"No. It means I'm going to show you."

"Great!" That seemed to wake him up the rest of the way, and he grinned. "So how do we start?"

"We start by waiting for Flash and Kid Flash to come back. You both need to know how to do this, and it will go faster with two of you."

"Oh. Okay. That makes sense."

They sat in silence for a moment. "...Robin."

"Huh?" He looked up from the twig he'd plucked out of the wall and had been rolling between his hands.

"Did you sleep well?"

"Oh, yeah! I was super warm. You're a good space heater."

"...No nightmares?" There had been no signs of any, but that didn't rule them out entirely.

"No. But you were right here, so that's not surprising."

"Mm."

"...Did _you-_"

"No," he cut him off.

"Okay. Good. Although..." The young voice grew thoughtful. "Do you ever?"

"...Do I ever what?"

"Have nightmares when you're in costume. Do you?"

It took him a breif spell to answer. Thinking back, there were few times when he had slept soundly enough under the cowl for dreams to have come at all, let alone bad ones. "I don't recall any," he replied finally. "But there haven't been many opportunities, either."

"Not even on long missions, like for the League?"

"No one gets much rest on those. If sleep was easier to come by on such trips, then I suppose I would have more nightmares." He'd seen plenty enough hellscapes while under the cowl to inspire them, that was for certain. If the frequency with which those events haunted his civilian sleep was any indicator of what they would do when he was masked, he ought to be grateful that he rarely slept in costume. "Why do you ask?"

"I thought...I thought maybe your cowl protected you from them. That's all."

There was something more to it than that, he sensed. "...You were hoping that if my cowl protected me that your mask might protect you?"

"Well...yeah. Is that weird?"

"No. It's logical. Our disguises hide our features from the world; it would make sense for them to also be capable of hiding some of the world's features from us."

"I was thinking of it like a dreamcatcher," Robin confessed. His hand rose to trace the line where his mask met his cheek. "Like...all the bad stuff gets caught in the black part – the web – and the good stuff, it goes in through our eye holes. Then when we take the masks off, the bad stuff just...goes away." He sighed again. "I know they don't _really_ work like that, but it's kind of a nice idea, don't you think?"

"...Yes. It is. Robin..." _Don't write it off,_ he wanted to tell him. _You can use your mask as a wall. Make your night self separate from the part of you who embraces the sun._ The urge to say such a thing was gone almost as quickly as it had come. What right did he have to make the child like himself in that way? Bruce didn't have to intervene for him to realize what a grave mistake giving that advice would be. His son was whole, and he needed to stay that way.

"Batman? What is it?"

"...That's not a bad way to think of it, having your mask absorb some of the bad things you see through it." Now it was he who reached out to touch the border of flesh and fabric. "You need to still carry lessons away from your experiences, but if your mask helps you filter the memories then let it."

"Is that safe, though? When we're _not_ in masks you always say that it's important I work through bad stuff. So...which one is it?"

"It's both."

"I don't understand."

"You _do_ need to process everything, work through it all. You can't let it build up inside of you until it explodes." _That's my issue, not yours._ "But you also need to understand something. Come fall, you will begin to be exposed to people whose cruelty you cannot fathom right now. I know you've read some of their files, but that is nothing compared to seeing them in action.

"When that happens – and it will, because you were promised that experience – it will be more than you or any other sane person can handle without some sort of barrier between such events and their psyche. You'll still have to work through all of it, but your mask might serve to let you control the rate at which you do so. It won't stop everything, and it can't stop anything permanently, but it will help. At the very minimum, letting your mask be a filter – your dreamcatcher – might give you a few hours of repose in your civilian life. And trust me, Robin, those little breaks may someday prove to be your salvation."

The boy was gaping at him. "...Batman?"

"Yes?"

"That was really scary, you know."

"The part about the villains, you mean?"

"No. The part about the breaks."

"How so?" _That's not the part you should have been afraid of._

"Well, you just seem to be thinking about mask stuff so much, even when you're not wearing it. I mean...Sawbones, and the Joker, and the Montgomery Project, and everything else that I don't even know about...where are _your_ little breaks? I never see them, but you must need them too, right?"

He started. "Robin..." His throat grew thick, forcing him to clear it before he could continue. "...Suffice it to say that my breaks have been much more frequent in the past year than they had ever been before. Do you understand?"

It took a moment, but his partner's lips arched into a brilliant smile. "The past year, you said?"

"Yes. More or less."

"...I'll try to use my mask like you said, Batman. Then I can have my breaks, and you can have yours."

"Good. But Robin?" There was a caveat still to be told, and he didn't dare let him leave their makeshift tent without sharing it.

"Uh-huh?"

"If your mask is ever an insufficient filter, you _must_ tell me. Is that understood?" He spoke in a deadly serious tone, well aware of what the edge of control looked like and unwilling to imagine his son on that precipice.

"I understand."

"You're certain?"

Robin studied him, clearly picking up on the solemn tone of the question, then nodded. "I understand. I'll tell you if my mask isn't enough. But I don't think that will happen," he opined with much more confidence than the man across from him thought well-advised. "I mean, I've got it _and_ you to help me deal with things," he smiled. "Double filtration, right?"

"...Yes. But not even double filtration can get rid of everything bad."

"No, but it's _way_ better than nothing, or only one thing." He straightened suddenly. "Hey! Couldn't we do that with the water? Filter it? That's a good idea, right?!"

The change in topic was a relief, and the turn it had taken drew a faint smirk over Batman's lips. "It's an idea that we'll discuss shortly," he answered, not wanting to give anything away. "But you're partway there."

A disgruntled chattering echoed in the depths of the forest, punctuating his sentence and catching their attention. "What is _that_?" Robin queried. "It sounds like a psychotic squirrel."

"That," he informed him, "is the hallmark of returning speedsters."

"...Really? How do you know?"

"You can ask them that when they arrive in a few seconds, since they're the ones who have aggravated that damn squirrel twice now." He tapped the boy's bent knee and gestured for him to crawl out first. "Let's go. The day's already started; the dew will burn off soon."

"The dew? What's that got to do with...ooooh. I get it. Dew...water. Right?"

"Right. Now hurry up, it goes fast." Like so many other things, he mused as the child scrambled for the open air. Dewdrops and little birds; gone before you know it, but life-saving while they last. Climbing out behind him, he stood, glanced around at the trees, and shook himself free of the sentimentality that had slipped in over the past half-hour. He wasn't sure where it had come from precisely, but he had no more time to spare it; there were far more important things at hand.


	11. Chapter 11

They spent the first hour of the day concerning themselves with water. Since they lacked anything in which to boil liquids, Batman gave the boys the task of finding cloth they could carry through the night-damp forest. They wasted five minutes trying to use Robin's cape for their task before they realized that its waterproofing was causing the moisture to bead and roll away rather than soak in. The rest of their clothing was just as rain-resistant, leaving them high and dry. Robin was about to suggest that they just lick the water right off of the grasses and leaves when his hand brushed his belt, giving him a new idea.

"Gauze!" he cried out. "Gauze and bandages from my medical pack. We can use those!" A single assenting nod from his mentor relayed that he had the right answer, and he beamed.

His joy was somewhat stymied when he found out just how little actual moisture was able to be wrung out of the sodden white strips. It was a last-ditch tactic, Batman reminded him, but a small drink was better than none. He agreed not because his thirst had been quenched by the half-mouthful of water he'd gotten from the fabric he'd tied around his ankles but because they'd found a variety of juice-heavy berries during their traipse that promised to do the job.

After they polished off their modest breakfast Robin expected to be shown some way to purify questionable water without a container. The cowled man demurred, however, and told him to keep dwelling on the problem for a while longer. When he countered with the risks of dehydration, Batman pointed out that there was plenty of liquid in their food to keep them running for a while without so much as feeling thirsty. There wasn't much of an argument he could make to that, at least not so long as his lips were still tinged berry-bright, so he simply wrinkled his nose and asked what was next if not water.

The answer of 'more food' elicited a cheer from both speedsters. After having closely monitored the boys' breakfast berry picking, Batman wanted to see that they had learned to sort poisonous food from safe on their own. Giving them strict instructions to not eat _anything_ until he had checked their selections, he sent them off to forage between camp and the 'crash site.' Thus it was that they found themselves examining bushes in the middle of the forest, occasionally adding something to the pouch they'd made of Robin's cape and talking non-stop.

"Oh, hey, here's a _ton_!" KF called, tugging on the clusters growing from a low, scrubby tree.

"Um...I think those are poison," the younger boy opined, drawing close.

"What? How can you tell?!"

"Look," he pointed to one of the tiny fruits. "It's a dark, smooth berry. We're supposed to avoid dark berries that aren't blueberries, and we're _definitely_ supposed to leave smooth ones alone. Remember?"

"He said there are some smooth ones that are okay, just that it was more detailed info than we need right now! These could be one of those good kinds. I mean, c'mon, bro! These look sort of like blueberries, maybe it's just a...a...a subspecies," he crowed as he came up with the right word.

"KF, have you ever heard of blueberries growing on a tree?"

"Well, no, but...ah, crap." He released the plant he had pulled down and gave a heavy sigh. "Dude, I'm _terrible_ at this. I'd have killed myself with bad food like five times now if you weren't here."

"You're just hungry. Berries aren't much of a breakfast for someone with your appetite. It's okay."

"It's _not _okay_." _He slumped to the earth, disheartened. "It's not just the berries, either. If this was a real plane crash – if we were stuck out here, just me and you, trying to survive – I'd be totally useless."

"KF-"

"No, I _would_ be! Think about it," the redhead insisted. "I ate all of your emergency rations before we'd even been here an hour. I couldn't start a fire last night, so we had to use your matches. I've been trying to think of something we could use as a container, but I can't come up with anything. I screwed up this morning and went running so fast trying to get water that I ended up blowing the dew off of everything I ran by. Then I _still_ didn't have much," he pouted. "You had to show me how to cook hot dogs, and even then I was still eating them half-raw before you started making them for me. Now I'm gathering poisonous berries!" He threw his hands up in exasperation. "I'm worse than useless out here, Rob. I'm a whatchacallit. A hindrance. I'd probably get you killed if this was real."

Robin blew out a long breath of air, then sat cross-legged in front of his friend. What, he wondered, could he say to restore his friend's usual confidence? "...Do you know what Batman said to me last night?"

"That you shouldn't hang out with idiots?"

"_No_." He poked friend's knee with a mighty frown. "And even if he had, you're not an idiot. What he said was that the whole point of training is to give you a chance to ask questions and test ideas in a more controlled environment. I messed up a lot yesterday, too, but what he said makes sense. It's okay that we don't know all the right answers right away. We're just kids, and we're still learning about this stuff. That's why he's going to check the berries when we get back, so we can make sure we're doing it right. And now you know not to pick smooth, dark berries from trees, so...that's something, isn't it?"

Slowly, Kid Flash looked up from the ground cover he'd been picking at all through Robin soliloquy. "...You know, you're really good at making people feel better," he commented. "I just...I feel like I'm holding things up, you know? You've got the tools and the brains to use them, and I've got nothing but fast feet. What good are those in a forest where I have to slow down to, like, forty miles an hour max?"

"They'd be _really_ useful if there were baddies looking for us. You could just grab me and run away. Besides, you're going to be _amazing_ once you get better at compartmentalization. You'll start fires so fast that it will look like you just rubbed your hands together and boom! Fire." He grinned. "You'll be snagging fish out of streams in no time."

"...Do you really think so?"

"Totally, bro! And even if you're never the world's greatest survival expert, or whatever, you'll still be my best friend. You still need to learn all of this stuff, because someday you might be stuck out here without me, but at least you know that I'd never let you eat poison berries if we were together. Right?"

"Right," Kid Flash smiled. "...Hey, Rob?"

"Yeah?"

"I think I know how I can think about which things I should and shouldn't eat. I'll just make you talk in my head."

"...You mean like 'hey, those berries are segmented and grow low to the ground, they must be good'! Or 'uh oh, round fruit on a vine that isn't a grape? Better stay away'!" He giggled at his own exaggerated voice. "You mean like that?"

"_Exactly_ like that," KF laughed along with him. "You sound like a game show host."

"Tonight on To Berry or Not to Berry," Robin intoned, "our contestants must divide eighteen different wild plants into 'safe' and 'not safe' categories..._or die trying_!"

"...Why do they die? Do they have to eat whatever they put in the 'safe' pile?"

"Don't ask me. I didn't invent this game." He shrugged. "Anyway, do you want to keep looking, or should we go back?"

"We don't really have many, do we?"

He lifted the makeshift sack. "Not really. I think it's less than we had at breakfast."

"Craaaap...I'm _hungry, _I need something more than fruit!"

"Well, the day just started. Maybe Batman will show us a way to find other food. So you want to keep going, then?"

"Yeah," KF stood, "let's keep..." He trailed off, his eyes widening comically as he stared into the middle distance. "Uh...Rob?" he whispered.

"Huh?" His brows knit as he observed his friend. "KF, are you okay?" _Oh, great,_ he moaned silently, _you ate something while I wasn't looking, didn't you? Please, please don't have poisoned yourself, Wally. I've already lost one friend this summer; I don't think I could stand it if something happened to you, too._ Gulping, he scrambled to his feet and shook the other boy's shoulder. "…Bro? What's wrong? Are you okay? Do you need me to get Batman, or-"

"Rob, _look_." The speedster raised one trembling arm to point through the woods.

He stared at his unwavering and fearful gaze for a moment more, then turned. Writing Kid Flash's reaction off as a psychotropic reaction to whatever he had put in his mouth without permission, he didn't expect to actually see anything but more forest. "What are you talking aboooooh, god!" His question transformed into a low cry of surprised as he spied what had caught KF's attention. A burly black mass was sweeping towards them from a hundred feet away, swinging its head back and forth as it searched for berries. Occasionally it gave a low grunt, its shoulders humping as it reached down to eat. _That's…that's not Batman,_ Robin fumbled. _Oh, crap…_

"What do we do?" an urgent whisper came from his right.

"Um…well, we're not supposed to run. Bears chase you if you run," he recalled from his reading.

"Could we climb a tree and wait for it to go away?"

"No, black bears can climb trees. If we go up one and he follows, we won't have anywhere to go."

"But it's getting closer!" KF's voice had taken on a strained tone.

"I know! Aah…" He thought hard about every tip he had heard during his studying over the past week. "I think we should let it know we're here. It's worse if we surprise it."

"But if it knows we're here it might attack! I know berries weren't enough breakfast for me, so they probably aren't for a bear, either!"

"Calm down! I have an idea."

"What's it?"

"Bend down so I can get on your shoulders. We need to be tall so it thinks we're bigger than it is. Maybe we can scare it away."

Kid Flash crouched. "…Are you _standing_ on me?" he asked a second later when Robin stepped onto his shoulders.

"Yeah. Sorry if I'm heavy, but the taller we look the better. Stand up slow, okay?" Drawing on every ounce of experience he had in keeping his balance, he managed to keep upright as KF rose beneath him. "Whoooa…okay. I'm going to wave my arms, and we'll call out to it. Ready?"

"Wait! What do we say?"

"Who cares? It's a bear, it's not like it will understand us. Just try to sound calm, _not_ scared. Ready?"

"Um…I guess so?"

The lack of confidence in his answer matched what Robin was feeling perfectly. He knew he couldn't let the bear see that they were scared and uncertain, though, so he took a deep breath. "One…two…three! Hey, there, Mr. Bear," he spoke up, waving his arms over his head as best he could without endangering his precarious perch. "How are you today? Those berries are pretty, uh…pretty good! We had some for breakfast. I hope they're making you nice and – whooooa – full…"

Below him, KF had latched onto his feet in an attempt to help keep him upright. "Hey, bear," he added to the noise level, "please stay over there and _don't_ eat us. I'll seriously never complain about only having berries for breakfast again if you just, ah, go away, maybe? Goawaygoawaygoawaypleeeeease…"

The bear halted as their voices reached its ears. Looking up, it blinked at them and seemed to yawn. Then it took two lumbering steps closer, a curious _chuff_ sounding in the back of its throat.

"Oh, god, Rob, we're gonna die," KF whined.

"Um…just keep it up, okay? We're…we're doing good." He didn't believe a word of what he'd just said, but the creature had closed the gap to fifty feet while they'd been organizing their counter to it. Even with the fastest boy in the world under him, he wasn't sure they could risk running. _This could still work. This could still…could still…_

His desperate hoping stuttered to a stop as the animal rose onto its back legs. Its front paws dangled as it sniffed the air, and for all that he was terrified Robin couldn't help but notice how beautifully the thing's fur shone in the dappled sunlight. Bear and boys examined one another, neither side sure of the other's intentions. For a moment the world seemed to freeze. Then the animal fell back onto all fours and began to walk forward again.

_Nope. I'm out,_ Robin decided. Standing their ground against criminals with guns was one thing; letting themselves be drawn into a fight with a bear was something else altogether. It was a safe bet that this encounter was _not_ intended as part of their training, and as such he had no qualms about bailing now that things seemed to be escalating. Shaking off KF's grip, he leaped to the ground behind him and then hopped back on, wrapping his arms around the speedster's neck.

"…CanIrunnowohgodlet'srunnowRob!" a garbled request was made.

"Yeah," he nodded as the bear's distance fell to forty feet. "_Run_!"

* * *

**Author's Note: Don't worry, the cliffhanger is only until Friday! Happy reading!**


	12. Chapter 12

In mere seconds they were back at camp. Batman and Flash, who had been talking near the fire ring, both looked up as they burst through the brush. KF slid to a stop, nearly fell on the half-trampled grass, and spat out a single word.

"Bear!"

"...Wait, what?" Flash shook his head in disbelief. "You _actually_ saw a bear?"

"Yes!" Robin squeaked. "We tried to make it go away, but it kept coming towards us."

Batman stood without a word. The cowl turned as he studied the forest on all sides of them. Satisfied that the creature wasn't hot on their tail, he drew up to the still-stacked children. "...Get down, Robin."

"Oh! Sorry, KF," he apologized, dropping to the ground.

"I didn't even notice, dude. I'm so full of adrenaline right now..."

"Come sit down, Kid," Flash called his trembling protege over. "You're pale, and that's saying something."

"Ha, ha," the younger speedster fake-laughed as he obeyed orders. "...Rob, you're okay, right?"

"I...I think so." Having answered his friend's question, he turned his attention to the frowning man before him. "...Batman?" _I screwed up again, didn't I? Craaap...we __had__ to run, though, it wouldn't stop! _"Batman, I-"

"Did it attack you?"

The sudden inquiry cut him off, and he stuttered as he tried to change tacks. "N-no, but...wait, what are you doing?" One gauntleted hand had risen and was reaching for the side of his head. He felt a sting, and then the man's finger was hovering in front of his eyes. A smear of blood, barely visible against the glove's black fabric, shone on the tip. "Oh, hey, am I bleeding?" he asked, so caught off guard that his voice came out more curious than worried.

"You're _sure_ it didn't touch you?" a growl sounded.

"Huh-uh. I mean, yes, I'm sure. It didn't get close enough. But..." He fingered the spot that had burned under Batman's touch. "Huh. I guess it must have been a tree limb or something."

"Everything okay?" Flash called from where he'd slung his arm around KF's shoulders.

"It's fine," the other man replied. Scanning the treeline again, he moved around to examine the injury more closely. "...It appears to be nothing more than a deep scratch. Your belief that it was caused by a tree branch is likely correct, Robin."

"A tree branch?" Kid Flash's face fell as he spoke. "That means it's my fault."

"No it doesn't," Robin argued. "You were getting us away from the bear. I'd much rather have a dinky little scratch than get eaten alive."

"'Dinky little scratch' or not, it will have to be dressed," Batman ruled in a tone that brooked no opposition. "It's minor, but you're exposed to far more dirt here than at home. First, though, explain what happened with this bear. It doesn't appear to have followed you," he scanned the forest again, "so where did you see it?"

"We were most of the way to the, uh, crash site," he told him, still poking at his own ear. "...Ow."

"Stop playing with it." There was a pause. "...What's that in your other hand?"

For a moment he was confused. Then his brain, still coming down from their animal encounter and the subsequent stress of explaining what had happened, registered that he was holding something. "Oh," he laughed despite his mingled emotions. "That's my cape. We were putting the berries we picked into it. I guess I was so distracted by the bear that I forgot I had it still."

Batman's mouth opened as if he were about to say something, then shut. "Tell me about the bear," he requested after a brief silence.

The boys' sentences tripped over one another as they both contributed details. "..But it kept coming, so we had to run," Robin finished. "Well...I _thought_ we had to run. Now I'm not so sure."

"There were many other options open to you."

"I...I know." He hung his head. _I have flash pellets and noise makers in my belt,_ he gulped. _I could have thrown a rock, I guess, if I'd found one quick enough. _But there hadn't seemed to be time, even before the creature had known they were there. A primordial instinct to escape the predator had kicked in, and despite his best efforts he hadn't been able to overcome it with logic for long.

"We were just _scared_, Batman," he blurted as his eyes grew hot behind his mask. "We looked up, and it was _right there._ I remembered that you're not supposed to run from bears, and I'd read about the whole waving your arms and shouting thing, so...I guess I forgot that I had my night-time tools on me for a second. I've never even _thought_ about having to fight a bear before, in or out of costume," he pleaded. "I know I screwed up, but...please don't be mad, okay? I didn't do it on purpose, honest." Finished, and with nothing more to do than to wait for judgement, he closed his eyelids against his threatening tears.

A faint rustle was all that gave away the fact that Batman had lowered himself into a crouch. "Robin. Look at me."

He didn't know how the man knew his eyes were closed behind his lenses, but he did as he'd been told. "Y-yes?"

"I am not mad at you."

"...Disappointment's worse, though."

"I'm not disappointed, either."

"Why not? You should be." He was disappointed in himself, after all, so his mentor had every reason in the world to feel the same.

"Mm...tell me, if you had encountered a person – an enemy, Robin, someone who was out to capture or kill you – instead of a bear, how would you have reacted?"

"That's easy," he sniffled. "We would have kicked his butt. But people are easy," he argued. "Bears...bears are hard."

Batman gave a low laugh, surprising everyone. "Ahem," he cleared his throat, trying to save face. "You've made my point for me. People seem 'easy' because you've been trained to deal with them and you have experience doing so. You have no experience or training when it comes to bears, correct?"

"...Well, no, but-"

"But nothing. You could have made better choices out there, yes, starting with being more vigilant of your surroundings. However," he ruled as he straightened to his full height, "in the end you got away safely, save one fairly insignificant scratch. That's far more than many people who _are_ trained on and experienced with bears have managed in the past. We'll discuss better animal safety this afternoon, but before that..." His held out his hand. "Let me see what you collected."

_...Oh, gosh, I hope I didn't mess that up too,_ Robin fretted as he handed over his cape. "It's...it's not much."

"It's about a half gallon," Batman replied as he studied the contents. "More important, however, is the fact that there don't appear to be any poisonous berries at all."

He felt a surge of hesitant joy. "...Really? They're...they're all okay?"

"Yes." The cowl rose from its study of the food. "As you see, when you've been trained in something you do it well."

"So well he didn't even drop the bag," Flash joked.

_...The bag?_ His gaze flew to the fabric that was still draped across his mentor's arms. It sagged in the middle where the weight of the wild fruit was concentrated, and in that instant he experienced an epiphany. _The bag!_ "Batman, my cape is waterproof!" he squealed.

A smirk appeared on the man's mouth, revealing that he'd known the solution to their water problems all along and had simply been waiting for his son to reach the same conclusion. "Yes," he nodded. "It is."

"So we could boil water in it, right?" His earlier upset had been overturned, and he bounced in excitement as he spoke. "I mean, we can't let the flames get super high or anything – like you said yesterday, just because our clothes are fireproof doesn't mean we shoud test it – but I bet it would work! Can we try, _please_?"

"Yeah, let's try that!" Kid Flash, apparently as recovered from his fright as his friend was, pitched in. "I bet it works like gangbusters!"

"...'Gangbusters,' Kid?" Flash arched an eyebrow.

"Well, _you_ say that sometimes. Besides, don't you think it could? I think it will. We should try it!" Scrambling away from the elder speedster, KF stood up and offered his fist. "That was _genius_, bro!"

"Thanks!" His beaming smile broadened as their knuckles met. "I just hope it's faster than gathering dew was, because I'm getting thirsty."

"Yeah? I'm hungry again."

"Shocking," Robin and Flash said at the same time. "At least we have snack berries now," the boy went on.

"Yeah, but...is that all we're gonna eat all _day_?" The redhead struggled to control his pained expression, but failed. "Berries are great and all, but they're not very filling."

"Um...Batman?"

"After we see if your water solution works and get your ear cleaned up, we'll go fishing. But that's no guarantee of success," he warned as he set the re-tied bundle down. "If you don't catch anything, you'll have nothing but what you can pick to eat."

"Couldn't we set some traps for animals or something, too?" KF asked. "Then we'd have more chance of catching food."

Robin felt his stomach churn as a vision of a strangled rabbit flew past behind his eyes. "Could we _not_?" he countered. Three sets of eyes fixed themselves on him, causing him to blush. "It's just...well, I don't want to kill anything...fuzzy...if we don't have to. I get knowing how to do it, but we're not actually going to starve to death if we stick with fishing."

"I might," Kid Flash argued.

"You will not," Flash shook his head. "It might _feel_ like you're starving, but you won't."

"I thought you wanted to keep your friend fed, Robin," Batman put in, alluding to the events of the day before.

"I _do_, but..." He drew a deep breath. He wanted to keep KF fed and happy, yes, but he couldn't shake that struggling bunny from his mind. "It's just that fish don't have feelings, you know? I don't mind killing them, but..."

"Don't tell that to PETA," Flash jested. "You'll get a lecture on sea kittens that you'll never forget."

"You're not helping, Flash," Batman grimaced. "Kid Flash is right, Robin. Snares will double your potential food capture rate if you set them up before you fish. It's a good plan."

"What if we set them up and then catch a bunch of fish, though? We'll have wasted whatever we caught in the snares in the meantime, and that's not right."

"In a survival situation, it wouldn't be wasted."

"But we're not _actually_ in a survival situation!" he exclaimed. "We're going home tomorrow. I know we're supposed to pretend like the plane crash is real, but if we kill something we don't need with a snare it won't be pretend. Can't...can't we trying fishing first, and then set snares if we don't get anything after, like, an hour or something?" Batman's mouth remained firm, so he turned to KF. "Bro...c'mon, please? Can't we just _try_ fishing before we set up traps?"

The older boy stared at him for a long second, then sighed. "You promise we'll set up snares if we don't catch, like, a crap-ton of fish? I'm _really_ hungry, and it's not even lunch time yet."

"I totally swear," he agreed. "We probably don't even need poles, you know; you're so fast you can just grab them out of the water!"

"...That _would_ be kind of cool. Okay, we can fish first."

"Yay!" Robin threw himself at him. "Best bro ever," he declared in the midst of the ensuing embrace.

"Ahem," Batman broke them up with a harrumph. "I think you're both forgetting that snaring is an essential skill to have regardless of your fishing talents. And," he added, "regardless of your personal feelings on the matter."

_You're not even technically here,_ the part of Robin that couldn't stand the thought of killing an innocent forest creature wanted to retort. _This should be up to us._ He bit the sentiment back, though, well aware that it would only tick the man off. "We could learn how to set them without actually putting them in place. Then we'd know how."

"Would you know how to prepare the rabbit, bird, or other animal that you caught in it?"

"No. But we might not learn that anyway if we set snares and don't catch anything in them."

"In which case you would have gotten an education both in snaring and hunger on this trip."

"In which case the whole snaring thing would have been a waste of time that we could have used to try fishing more, you mean."

"Ooh, he's got you there, Batman," Flash smirked.

"...Hardly. Rather than continuing to argue and wasting further time on this issue, however, I will allow what the two of you have agreed upon to stand. But you _will_ learn to build snares today, and if there is no opportunity to put them to use on this trip you will have to do so on the next. Is that understood?"

"Yup," KF nodded.

"Okay," Robin capitulated. It wasn't a total victory, but at least he had postponed the inevitable. "But Batman?"

"Yes?"

He smiled. "...The 'next' camping trip?"

"There are many biomes in the world, Robin, each with its own challenges. You need to know how to survive in all of them." Watching him closely, the boy would have sworn he saw his lip twitch upwards. "As we've learned already this weekend, training and practice will make that a much easier task. For the moment, however, we need to think in the present." Dropping his hand onto his partner's shoulder, he turned him towards the stream. "Right now we're going to deal with our water shortage, not engage in the planning of future travel."

"We'll meet you on the sand," Flash said, rising. "Come on, Kid. Let's see if you can run across creeks without getting wet yet."

"Sweet!" KF cried so exuberantly that several birds took off out of nearby trees. A squirrel chittered in displeasure for the third time that day. "...Oops."

"Good luck!" Robin wished him. "I hope you can do it. That would be so awesome."

"You'll hear him if he manages it," Flash assured. "But then, so will the rest of the country. Ready, bud?"

"Yup!" And they were gone.

Batman's hand still rested on his son's shoulder, and now the boy craned up to look at him. "...Batman?"

"Yes, Robin?"

"Um...did I do what Flash said? Did...did I 'get you' in our debate?" The man had given in on several other things so far this weekend, but this had been the first time Robin had felt them to truly be at odds with one another. Success here would be a major feather in his cap.

"No."

"...Oh." _Crud._

The fingers at the top of his arm tightened briefly. "You did get closer than many, many others ever have, though."

"Really?!"

"Yes. And Robin?"

"Yeah?"

The cowl tilted, and he could feel hidden eyes boring into him. "...Don't ever be afraid to fight for what you believe in as you did just now. But keep in mind that taking an animal's life is not the same as taking a human's. I understand your hesitation, but at the end of the day it is you, not the rabbit or the bird or the bear, who must go on living. That is essential. I don't expect you to agree right now," he allowed, "but think about it nonetheless."

"...Okay, Batman." He wasn't sure how he felt about the point behind what had just been said, but he could puzzle that out later. "I'll think about it."

"Good. Then let's go test your hypothesis so we can clean your ear up with some fresh water." With another squeeze, his hand pulled away. "Lead the way, partner."


	13. Chapter 13

On the bank of the creek a few minutes later, Batman and Flash stood watching their boys as they attempted to capture water in a cape. They were using the heavy leather mantle that usually hung beneath the cowl, and they struggled with its weight in the gentle current.

"I'm surprised you gave them extra materials," Flash commented lightly.

"Mm." It hadn't seemed worth it to force Robin to puzzle out a way to keep the berries safe while they used the makeshift bag for another purpose. He'd chosen instead to let him ride high for the moment on his hard-won realization of how they could collect water, and as he caught a glimpse of a happy grin he felt his decision was validated. "Were they truly stranded here together, I imagine that they could dispatch the berries to Kid Flash's stomach in order to put Robin's cape to some other use."

Flash laughed and clapped him on the back. "You're not wrong about that. Although I have to say, I still think you're getting soft."

He stiffened and glanced at the other man out of the corner of his eye. "What?"

"The snares? I was just thinking...well, if you were conducting this training session with, say, members of the JLA whose woodscraft needed some sprucing up-" he smirked, amused by his own pun "-you would have forced the issue."

Batman grimaced, well aware that the assessment was an accurate one. As uncomfortable as he was with the fact, he _was_ a kinder, gentler person when his son was involved. It pleased Bruce to no end, and probably Alfred, too, but there were moments when it worried him. He could ill afford for such softness to leach into his treatment of others, and while he was as cold and unyielding as ever to his adversaries he knew that he had lost some of his zeal for one-upping his compatriots. His relations with Flash this weekend were proof enough of that. "The others aren't children," he excused himself. "I saw no need to give Robin additional nightmare fodder, especially after he proposed a reasonable adjustment to my plans."

"Wait...'_additional_ nightmare fodder'?"

He could have kicked himself. "Damn it," he muttered under his breath.

"You _have_ gotten soft," Flash nudged him. "But I like it. It's nice to be reminded every once in a while that you aren't made entirely of stone under that armor. Anyway...you want to explain what you meant?"

"Not particularly, no," he bristled.

"...Look, I have a bit of a reputation for having a big mouth, sure, but you _know_ I can keep secrets." The speedster crossed his arms, looking a little put out. "Besides...look at them out there," he nodded to where the boys had fallen to splashing each other, the cape having been temporarily abandoned on the opposite shore. "Those two show every sign of being inseperable as they grow up, and that means that sooner or later I'll probably be exposed to one of Robin's nightmares. I can deal with Kid's, but I'd bet good money that Robin's are tied to much more...intense...events than we come across in our neck of the woods. What I'm trying to say is, I'd like to know what I'm in for."

Batman considered ordering the youngsters to get back to work, but refrained in favor of weighing Flash's argument. He had a point, albeit a weak one, about the likelihood of his encountering one or more of Robin's bad dreams. Riding alongside that was the fact that two other members of the League knew the story already, and the documentation was sitting in the archives for anyone who cared to go looking for it. He shifted as it occurred to him that Superman had probably added the facts of Gobblehead's demise to the files. The Kryptonian hadn't said as much, but it would be foolish to think anything else.

"...Do you remember the Montgomery Project?" he asked finally, pitching his voice even lower than usual so that the children couldn't overhear.

"Montgomery..." Flash scratched the back of his head, his face squinching in thought. "...No."

His mouth tightened. "It was an early assignment that you weren't a part of, involving a plot to create super-intelligent animals in order to forward a militant vegan agenda." Surely _some_ word had gotten out within the group. He'd never wished for anything other than total mission confidentiality before, but he had neither the time nor the energy to explain the details now.

"Wait...no, I think I _do_ remember something. Yeah...yeah, I do. Wonder Woman told me about some of it. I was in the kitchen at the mountain," Flash recalled, "about to go on a twenty-four hour surveillance shift. I had a big pile of roasted chicken in front of me, I remember, and Wonder Woman came in. She gave me this weird look – I'd never seen her look at someone like that before – and I thought maybe she was hungry. I offered her a piece, you know, just...being polite...and she damn near burst into tears. It bugged me for awhile, but she found me later and explained about having to kill all those animals by, uh...by hand. I guess I just spaced the name of the mission," he shrugged. "But what's that got to do with nightmare fodder for Robin?"

"Did Kid Flash tell you about Gobblehead?"

"Your pet turkey? I know of him, but...jesus, man, where is this going?"

For both Robin's sake and his own, Batman did not want to dwell on this topic any longer than necessary. "Gobblehead was the last Montgomery animal," he explained shortly. "He died about seven weeks ago from the aftereffects of the Project. As a result I had to tell Robin the story of the JLA's shutdown of that scheme."

"...You told a ten-year-old the details of a mission that left Wonder Woman in tears?" Flash gaped.

"He deserved to know." He kept the crux of the situation to himself, seeing no reason to share the truth about the exaggerations and bald-faced lies that had made him unable to try and soften the blow by withholding information. "Among the things that Superman and I shared with him was our...method of disposal," he ground out. "That, coupled with his already strong love of animals, is what I believe drove his unwillingness to set snares today. Since, as you pointed out, this is supposed to be a 'fun' training experience, I thought it best to relent on something that might cause him undue distress." He paused. "That's all I'll say about it right now, Flash, so don't push for more information."

"No, I...I won't. God...poor Robin." He fell silent for a moment. "Hey, Batman?"

"Yeah?"

"...I'm sorry, man."

He narrowed his eyes. "For what?"

"All of it? I don't know, it's just...the more I learn about you, the more and more I think that you've had the hardest row to hoe of any of us. Don't punch me into next week for saying so, but...I'm sorry. You're a good guy; I think you deserved to be spared some of the things that you've had to deal with."

Batman was moved despite himself, but he made no sign of it. "It is what it is," was all he said as he turned back to face their proteges. "...And there are other compensations."

"Yeah, well...still." Neither spoke for a short time, both lost in their own thoughts as they watched the boys, who were now kneeling in close confidence on the far edge of the water. "...What are they _doing_ over there?"

He had been wondering the same thing, and had only deciphered their activity right before Flash inquired about it. "They're lashing together the sticks they tied the corners of the cape to," he answered.

"I can see how that will help once they get it back to the fire, but it's not going to make collecting water to begin with easier."

"No. It won't." They would find that out for themselves in a few minutes, he wagered, but said nothing.

Robin and Kid Flash, it turned out, had no intentions of trying to hold their contraption in the creek. Carrying it between them, they waded back to the little sand beach where their mentors were waiting and planted the rough wooden legs they'd made at the water's edge. There Robin stood, checking the knots holding the drooping cape to its frame as KF dashed back and forth from mid-stream to shore. Each delivery saw only the splash of water he could fit in his cupped hands fall into the makeshift pot, but he flew so fast between the source and the endpoint that it took only ten minutes before Robin stopped him.

"But bro, it's only half full!"

"Yeah, but we don't want to spill it. What if we accidentally put the fire out? Remember, that's why we decided to make the supports before we got it back to camp?"

"...Oh, yeah. It would be really bad if we put the fire out. We only have two matches left, right?"

"Right. But...Batman?" Robin turned towards his mentor. "Are you going to show us how to make the fire big again? I've never done that before."

"I'll tell you how," he nodded once. "But first you have to get the water back to camp."

The pair managed it with surprising ease, each taking one set of the frame's crossed legs in his hands and walking carefully through the brush wall that divided their camp from the water. Once they'd regained the clearing, however, the easy part ended. Finding that the soil was not as willing as the sand had been to accept the stumpy branches they'd tied the cape to, they were forced to set their precious load to one side and dig out post-holes.

When the water was secure, Batman began instructing them in the reviving of the fire. With both boys staring attentively between him and the cold-looking pit, he picked up one of their hot dog skewers. "The key," he explained, "is to find a live coal. Usually you would build your fire up first thing in the morning – remember that – but we let it burn long enough last night that there may still be something useful in this one." He stirred the gray char in the center of the ring as he spoke, letting his free hand hover over the little puffs of ash that rose in response to his tampering. "Sometimes you can feel the warmth of a coal before you see it." Standing, he handed the stick to Robin. "...Find a coal, and I'll tell you what's next."

The children fell to their knees. As Robin moved the debris aside, KF felt for rising heat. "There!" he cried after several minutes had passed. "Right there, Rob! I think there's something!"

There was something indeed, a tiny glowing ember no larger than the end of the younger boy's thumb. When it made its appearance, Batman breathed a silent sigh of relief. He had worried that they might have left this task to too late, and as much as the boys needed more practice starting fires from scratch he wanted them to know how to preserve the fire they had, as well. "Good. Now, what's next?"

"Uh...I thought you were going to tell us that part?" Robin asked.

"I will, if necessary, but I want to know what you think the answer is first."

"Well...we don't want to do what we did last night and put too much stuff on it, right?"

"Correct."

"So...maybe it's like a reverse fire?"

"...A 'reverse fire'?" An eyebrow rose beneath the cowl.

"Hey, that makes sense!" KF exclaimed and started for the wood pile. "You want kindling, right?"

"Bark first. I think we have to start _super_ small. Is that right, Batman?"

It took him a second, but he gathered what had been meant by the phrase 'reverse fire.' Yesterday they had piled up the fuel first, and then added the spark; now they needed to do the opposite. "Yes," he agreed. "But work carefully. Don't put it out or burn yourself."

"We won't."

He retreated to observe from a distance as they labored over the tiny heat source. A dual cheer rose when their meticulous feeding and blowing caused a flame to lick upwards at their faces. They groaned immediately afterwards as it vanished back into its root, but they kept at it. Their reward was being able to finally add a few thin pieces of kindling, then larger sticks and, at the end, a full-sized log. Before their exuberance could grow out of hand and cause them to build their creation up to a blaze, Batman stopped them. "Remember the water," he advised. "You want a low, hot fire to boil it."

They listened, turning their attention to preparing the earth just outside the rock ring to receive the water bag's supports. A trace of pride warmed him when Robin stopped, considered the fire briefly, and then used his poker to adjust the wood into a more favorable position. Catching his son's eye, he nodded, relaying his satisfaction. The boy was learning, and that was good.

No one moved for a moment after the frame was seated. The half-filled cape swung a bit, then settled. The knots at its corners held, and the occasional drip that fell from its bellied-out bottom was insufficient to do anything more than hiss as it evaporated. "...Did we do it, Rob?" KF whispered.

"I think we did it, bro! We're not gonna die of dehydration, hooray!"

Batman waited until their fists had bumped and fallen back to their sides to speak. "You did well," he congratulated them.

The redhead boggled at the compliment. "...Wait, you're serious?"

"Kiiid," Flash groaned. "'Thank you' would have been sufficient."

"If he said we did a good job, KF, then we _really_ did a good job." Robin, far more familiar with his mentor's habits than his friend was, was beaming. "And now we have food, water, fire, and shelter. Those are the most important things we need to survive!"

"Well, that's good. I'm not a fan of dying. But..." The younger speedster's gaze wandered towards the bundled cape they had left behind when they went after water. "...I wish we had more food. I'm freaking _hungry_." His stomach added its vote with a loud, resounding rumble. A second grumble echoed it, and KF giggled. "So's Flash," he teased.

"Ah, apparently so, since that last time was me," the man colored slightly. "What do you think, Batman? Berry break?"

"...I'll leave that up to you two," he pointed his chin at the supposed plane crash survivors. "If you want to eat now, then the berries you gathered are waiting. But keep in mind," he warned, "that if you fail to catch fish and haven't set any snares you'll only have berries to eat for dinner."

Kid Flash looked at Robin, his preference writ large on his pleading face. Robin glanced at his friend, then towards the bag his cape had been turned into. "...If we don't catch any fish, then we'll just have to gather more berries," he opined. "I think we should eat so we have energy for fishing. We have to wait for the water to boil anyway."

"Sweet!" KF retrieved the bundle in an instant. "Food..."

"Share some of those, would you?" Flash half-joked, half-instructed.

Batman, trained to ignore his stomach for up to several days at a time, didn't make a move for the pile of fruit. Once he had made certain that Robin got a decent portion – it wouldn't do for him to lose much weight out here, not when he was already struggling to hit the 'standards' set by CPS – he turned his attention to the flames. The lightening of the camp's mood that Flash had urged him to attempt the day before seemed to be working in spite of his initial doubts, he mused. The boys were happy, or at least they seemed to be, and they were learning on top of it. His partner's civilian depression even seemed to have waned since the previous night, and that was a victory unto itself. In fact-

His thoughts were cut off when a small hand landed on his elbow. "...Yes, Robin?" he asked without looking at him.

"Do you want some?"

He turned to find a palmful of berries being offered, and had to bite back a smile. Trust the child to notice that he wasn't partaking. "No. You eat them."

"...You're sure?"

"I'm sure. Eat."

"Okay. I'll go slow, just in case you change your mind." With that he scooted a little closer, dropped cross-legged to the ground, and selected his first bite.

Batman stared down at the back of his bent head for a second, then lowered himself to sit beside him. The boy gave him a grin, and he allowed one corner of his lip to twitch upward in reply. There was much to do with the rest of the day, but they had earned a little rest. The remainder would come soon enough; he would take this moment of peace while he could.


	14. Chapter 14

"Ow," Robin complained.

"Sorry," KF winced, pausing in his scrubbing of the other boy's ear. "He said I had to clean it out really good, though."

"It's okay. Do you think it's going to scar, Batman?" the injured child asked.

"...No. Not noticeably."

"You've got, like, a little chunk missing," the redhead marveled. "Just a _tiny_ bit, but it's kind of wicked."

"Really?!" Robin's fingers rose to the side of his head.

"Don't touch it!" both adults ordered.

"He'll make me clean it out again if you do," Kid Flash warned.

"...Yeah, you're right. He would." His hand fell back to his side. "Can we put a bandage or whatever on it now? I'm ready to go fishing."

Drawing near, Batman peered at the scratch along the top of his son's left ear. It had stopped bleeding on its own just after he'd first noticed it, but the younger speedster was right about there being a minute notch in the cartilaginous flesh. It would be as good as invisible to anyone who wasn't familiar with the previous shape of the appendage, but for some reason that didn't soothe his displeasure over the slight injury. It was a thousand times better an outcome than their having been attacked by the bear that had inspired their pell-mell run through the woods, but it was still another mark left by night work.

_Three, now_, he counted. _Three physical marks caused while he was under my care. _He didn't dare make an accounting of the possible emotional and psychological damage wrought by the events of the past year. Those numbers were too daunting even for him.

"...Batman?" Robin peered up at him, smiling, and the clouds that had been building up in the back of his mind burned away. "Is it okay?"

"It's fine," he nodded. "Give Kid Flash a piece of gauze and your medical tape. Don't cover his entire ear," he instructed the other child. "He needs to be able to hear."

"Okay. But you should know, I'm really bad with tape."

"He gets in a hurry and makes it stick to itself," Flash contributed.

"Well, I only have so much tape," Robin said, "so...just be careful, I guess."

"I will be, honest."

The cowled man tried not to interfere as KF muddled his way through the dressing. He was just beginning to regret giving the older boy a chance to practice his field medicine skills when a self-satisfied 'finished!' rang through the clearing.

"Kid...what did you _do_?" Flash gaped when his protege stepped back.

"I...bandaged it? I mean...ah, crap, did I screw it up?"

"I wouldn't say that," Batman rumbled, almost amused. "It's just very...thorough."

Robin's hand rose again. When no one told him to stop, he felt along the side of his head. As he went the curve of his mouth changed from curious, to confused, to disbelieving. "Bro, what happened?!"

"I wanted to make sure it was super covered so it wouldn't get infected."

"...I think you taped my ear to my head."

"I did. That was so if we had to run again in a hurry it wouldn't get caught in a tree so easy. I didn't cover your ear-hole, though, so you can still hear."

"Uh...thanks."

"You definitely won't get dirt in it with that get-up," Flash laughed. "It's been hermetically sealed."

"Which isn't a bad thing," Batman replied. "You would have been well-advised to reserve some of the tape in case one of you acquires another injury before you're rescued, however."

"Oh. That makes sense. So...we're done with this part, right?"

"Burn that piece of gauze you wiped the blood off with, and then bank the fire. After that we'll discuss fishing."

By 'discuss fishing' he had meant that they would venture back to the stream and hold a brief conference. "Where is the best place to find fish?" he quizzed once they had all gathered on the strand.

"In the water," Kid Flash said cheekily.

"Dude, that's how you earn a Batglare," Robin warned his friend.

"Yeah, you're playing with fire, there, Kid."

Batman restrained himself from leveling one of his signature looks at the older child, letting the twist of his mouth show his displeasure instead. "...Robin. Can you produce a more intelligent answer?"

"Um...gosh. Well, we didn't really see any fish in there while we were getting water, but that doesn't mean there aren't any. Maybe we should see if there's a spot where its slower. Then the fish wouldn't have to work so hard to swim."

"And where would you go to find such a spot?"

"I guess that way," he pointed downstream. "It should get bigger as it goes, right? So maybe there will be more side-thingies...what do you call them...eddies."

"Hypothetically. Would you like to test your theory?"

"Yeah!" both children agreed.

After he'd sent Robin to get his cape so that it could be rinsed of any clinging berry juice, Batman led them all in the direction that had been chosen. He had, of course, studied the area intently before choosing it as their camping destination, and while he hadn't seen the clearing they were camped in on any maps he _had_ found a sizable pond nearby. It would serve their purposes very well, he suspected, and might even yield enough fish to fill the speedsters without necessitating the setting of the snares that Robin so dreaded.

The boys traipsed happily along behind him, chattering about everything they'd done and seen so far. He opened his mouth to remind them that if they thought they were being hunted by enemies they would want to keep a low, quiet profile, then changed his mind. They were children on a camping trip, Flash's admonition came back to him. Besides that, both had shown in the past that they could silence themselves when opponents were near. Their noise might even serve a purpose if it happened to warn off the bear they had encountered earlier.

After fifteen minutes of weaving between the changeable bank and the cool water they emerged on the edge of a small beaver lake. The creatures responsible for stopping up the flow of the creek were frolicing in the noon sun, rolling, diving, and splashing in the pond's center. The dome of their lodge rose on the opposite side, and beyond that the trickle of water running through the dam could be heard. Batman looked down as Robin stepped to his side. "It's really pretty here," the child remarked.

"...Yes. It is."

"Did you know this was close by, or did we just get lucky?"

He smirked. "What do you think?"

"I think you wouldn't have taken us camping somewhere that you hadn't thoroughly investigated beforehand."

"You might be right about that. Now," he shook himself, "let's see about those fish."

There were shallows all around, but they circled until they found a long underwater shelf where the sun-heated water was almost warm to the touch. On the bottom lay a dozen or so shadows that might have been mistaken for sticks had their tails not been moving slowly back and forth. "Hey, look!" KF cried, "there they are!"

"_Don't _go splashing in after them," Flash held his partner back with one hand. "You'll be extremely hungry tonight if you do."

"Okay, well how do we do it, then?"

"It requires tact," Batman answered, "and patience."

"Oh, great," KF sighed. "I'm _terrible_ at patience. And I'm not so great at tact, either."

"You'll be fine," Flash assured. "Once you get out here, it's really about speed."

The redhead brightened. "Now _that_ I'm good at!"

They settled down to business, each pair splitting off to their own end of the fishing grounds. When they'd waded cautiously to a good spot, Batman turned to look at his protege. "...Are you ready?"

"Um...sure. But I don't know if I can do what they're doing," he jerked his head towards the speedsters, who were going over how to snatch a fish at lightning speed and chuck it onto the bank before it knew what was happening. "I'm not that quick."

"That's fine." While that was the method that he himself employed – it didn't require metahuman reflexes to do successfully, just a strong grip – he hadn't expected his son to be able to master it in the short time they had to practice. "There is another method. But first, do you know what kind of fish these are?"

He stared down at the nearest specimen for a moment. "No. I've never really studied fish."

"These are trout. Trout, and some other species as well, have a useful weakness; they like to be tickled."

A high-pitched giggle erupted from the boy's throat. "What?! How do you tickle a _fish_?!"

"It's fairly simple once you get it down. We'll want to make sure that we're close enough to shore that you can throw it without it landing too close to the water. It doesn't do any good if it flops right back in after you've caught it."

"Okay, I think I can chuck it that far. So...how do you tickle a trout?"

"Hold your hand like this," he directed him, turning one small gloved limb palm-up and curling the fingers halfway. "Now you get close to a fish – go slowly, or you'll scare it off – and kneel down. Just on one knee, you don't need to get on both. Once you've done that, you slide your hand underneath and start stroking its belly. You have to go slow still; just work your strokes up until you're right under the gills. Then you should be able to pick it up and throw it on the bank." He paused. "Does that make sense?"

"So...we put it in a trance, then we make it suffocate?"

"...Yes." For an instant he thought the boy was going to revolt. The lips beneath the domino mask twisted, and one was pulled back to be gnawed at pensively. "...Robin?"

"I'm okay. Just...thinking. But I guess there's not really a more humane way to do it, at least not that I can come up with, so..." He shrugged. "They're just fish, and at least this way they get to sort of be in a happy place right before they die."

If that was how he wanted to think of it, Batman wasn't going to argue. He was far more interested in his son's ability to feed himself in an emergency than in the philosophy that might accompany his methods. "Are you ready now?"

"I...I think so. Which one should I start with?"

"That one," he pointed. "It's small and close to shore."

The first few attempts ended in failure. On the fourth try the boy managed to get his fingers up to the fish's gills, but he didn't move quite fast enough to sweep it out of the water and towards the shore. "Darn it," he protested.

"Try again."

"I was so close...well, at least they aren't swimming away after I try to pick them up." Conveniently, each silvery body that he had attempted to pluck from the water had fled mere feet away before settling down again. Creeping up once more on the one he'd just lost, Robin knelt and slipped his hand underneath of it. "Come on, fishy...go to sleep..."

A huge splash came from the speedsters' side of the operation as KF dove for a particularly large specimen. Batman looked over, and as a result missed the magical moment when his son lifted a speckle-scaled body into the air.

"Uh...what do I do with it now, again?"

He turned, and for a second an honest smile appeared beneath the cowl. _His first fish,_ he crowed to himself. "Get it to shore before it wakes up," he reminded him. _Got it in less than a half-dozen tries. That's my boy. _

"Do...do I _have_ to throw him?"

"No, but if you're carrying him you better go fast. Keep the splashing down," he slowed him as ran a few steps. "You'll scare off the others."

"...Rob?" KF called as he came up with his hair dripping and his hands empty. "Oh, hey, you got one! Nice!"

"Good catch, Robin!" Flash agreed. Once he'd voiced the compliment, he turned a knowing grin towards Batman. "He's a natural!" he added, and winked.

_...God, that's a good feeling, _Bruce spoke up suddenly, his voice filled with pride.

_Watching him do something, and do it well, for the first time, you mean?_

_ Yeah. Moments like this make me realize why people have kids to begin with._

_ People have children for the propagation of the species, and in some cases for reasons of vanity or self-aggrandizement, _Batman corrected. _You know that._

_Oh, whatever, spoil sport. You liked it too. I felt that smile you gave him. You're proud as punch right now, just like I am._

_ 'Proud as punch'? I see Barry is rubbing off on you in a negative manner._

_ Whatever. You got a kick out of seeing him with that fish in his hands, all nervous about what to do with it. _Bruce paused. _I already know you did, so you might as well admit it._

Watching the boy climb up onto the bank and deposit the weakly wiggling trout in the grass, his mouth curved upward for the second time in as many minutes. _...Okay, Bruce,_ he conceded._ You win._

* * *

**Author's Note: If anyone is interested, I've posted a video of trout tickling on my blog, which is accessible through my fanfic profile. Happy reading!**


	15. Chapter 15

Robin knelt in the grass that grew right up to the edge of the beaver pond and watched with a frown as his trout gasped for air. For all that it was just a fish and there was nothing sympathetic or soulful into its eyes, he felt bad for letting it suffocate. What, he wondered, would drowning feel like for him? Would it be the same thing that the animal before him was going through, all desperate breaths and shivery spasms?

His radio crackled to life suddenly, and he heard his name spoken in his ear. "...Yes, Batman?" he answered automatically, his stare never leaving the flailing gills that found nothing but cruel open air each time they strained themselves.

"Are you coming back? One fish won't feed everyone."

There was the problem, laid out in five words; 'one fish won't feed everyone'. The speedsters were hungry, and would be even more so by the time they had a decent catch. He himself had been overjoyed at the prospect of fresh trout for dinner until a minute ago. Now, though, he was distracted by the slow death that this fish and any of those that came after it would have to suffer. If he were made to choose between watching the life leave the flat brown-black eyes before him or those of something furry or feathery, he knew which option he would prefer, but it still felt like there was something unjust about this situation.

"...Robin?"

"This isn't right, Batman," he whispered. "It's taking it so long..."

There was a pause on the other end, and for a moment he thought he'd angered or – worse still – disappointed the man. When the voice returned, however, it held no judgement. Thinking back on it later, he would decide that there might even have been a trace of tenderness underlying the assurance that came over the air. "It's okay, Robin. It's just a fish."

"I know, but...it looks like it hurts. It shouldn't have to hurt, not for so long. Not even for a fish."

"...You could help it along, if you wanted."

His eyes widened beneath his mask. Part of him desperately wanted to do exactly that, if only to end the creature's apparent distress, but how could he? "We don't kill, though."

"People," Batman added. "We don't kill people. Fish and food animals are different. We can kill them if we must, and in this case we must. It's not a crime, and it's not cruel or unfair either. In fact, it's the opposite."

He wrinkled his nose at the already-dulling scales, which now merely shivered instead of flashing the way they had when their owner had had more life left to fight for. "How so?"

"Because It's already dead. If you put it back in the water now, the odds of it recovering are very slim. Even if that wasn't the case, you _couldn't_ put it back because you need food. So help it along, Robin. Make its death quick in the hopes that your life will be long."

"I..." He didn't want to, but he had to make the awfulness stop somehow. Not only that, but he had to catch further fish; KF didn't seem to be having any luck yet, and if they failed to procure a decent catch he would be forced to set snares. The long, narrow body before him was already on the edge of expiring, Batman had said, so maybe, he thought, it would be an easier one to start with. "...How?" he asked in a husky voice.

"What?"

"How do I do it? How do I...fix it?"

"Most people would hit it hard on the head with a blunt object. Alternately," the man hesitated, "you can stab it through the top of the skull or in the eye with your knife."

A violent shudder rocketed down Robin's spine. "I'll skip the stabbing, I think."

"Then you'll need a rock or a sturdy stick."

"...Okay." His knees proved shaky as he rose, but he managed to find a large stone along the water's edge that he thought would meet his needs. It narrowed on one side, ending in a rounded point that protruded from his palms when he held it in both hands. Returning to his catch, he prepared to deliver the necessary blow. "Oh..."

"Robin?" A beat passed. "Do you need me?"

"No, I'm okay. It's just...I was too late." The fish had stopped moving during his absence, its post-mortem nerve spasms giving out with little fanfare. "I tried to hurry..."

"Well...it was your first one. You couldn't have known for sure how long it would take." The line buzzed as Batman cleared his throat. "You'll do better with the next. You'll make it quick and clean."

"I...yeah," he gave in. "Sorry, fishy."

He took his time going back out to where the cowled figure stood marking their spot. When he'd drawn up beside him a gauntleted hand came down gently on his shoulder and squeezed. "It gets easier," a rumble advised him.

"I don't know that that's a good thing, Batman," he replied, staring at one of the shadows waiting for him under the surface of the water.

"I didn't say that it was. Just that that is how things are."

A deep, soulful sigh rolled from Robin's throat. "I know."

Whether it was a good thing or not, it _did_ get easier. His mentor accompanied him to shore when he'd dipped up his second fish, and there showed him how to hold the slippery lifeform in place with a boot while he struck with the rock. When the blow was delivered the thing gave one long curl, raising its tail almost over its head, and then fell flat. A few tiny tics caused its fins to flick, and after that it was all over. It was dead, and lay calmly beside its fellow on the grass.

"...Better?" Batman inquired.

To his own surprise, Robin nodded. "It...it was. I know that sounds awful, but...it was." The second fish hadn't suffered nearly so much as the first, and for all that he still held the object of its demise in his hands he didn't feel like a murderer the way he'd thought he might. "This way, when they're still flopping...I guess it's almost like you're in a fight with them," he rationalized out loud. "It's not like they're helpless. They could still get away."

"Right."

Biting his lip, he stared at the two trout he had brought in. They would feed his friends and family, he reminded himself. They wouldn't be wasted; they hadn't died in vain. _Thank you, fishies, _he thought silently. Something settled in his chest, and he looked up at the figure beside him. "...I think I'm ready to go get another one, Batman."

Fingers gripped the top of his arm again. "Good. You're doing well; I'm pleased that you want to continue."

The praise nearly knocked him over. "I...thanks." He blushed, a smile creeping over his lips as if the moral quandary he had only just freed himself from was a thing of the distant past. "It's, ah...it's not so bad, now."

They were about to step back into the water when a squeal of joy came from the direction of the speedsters. Kid Flash stood waist-deep, his mien a mingling of pride, uncertainty, and mild terror as he struggled to hold onto the squirming animal he'd finally managed to snatch. "I got it! I freaking _got it_!"

"Now get it to shore before you lose it!" Flash ordered, laughing around his proud smile.

"Oh, snap!" In an instant he was back on land, leaving a spreading wake behind him. "Can I put it down now?!"

"Go help your friend," Batman said quietly. "It will take a minute for the surface to calm after his...exuberant...exit. Show him what you've learned."

"Sure. But Batman?"

"Yes?"

"Thank you." The trip, their talk the night before, everything they'd done in the last twenty-four hours...he was grateful for all of it. Most of all, though, his thanks was for few complimentary words that had fallen out of the man's mouth mere moments earlier.

"...You're welcome. Now," he inclined his head towards the other boy, "go on. I'll meet you in the water."

"Okay!" Grinning, he turned to the bad juggling act that KF was doing with his fish. "Hey bro, hold on!" he called, starting towards him. "I've got a secret weapon!"

With both boys having figured out the basics of their respective methods and the trout, miraculously enough, failing to be frightened by Kid Flash's mad dash for shore, their pile grew swiftly. Robin was about to attempt his twelfth catch when Flash called out, drawing his attention.

"Hey, Batman! D'you think we've got enough?"

Grimacing, the cowled figure gestured that they should meet up on the bank. "Damn speedsters, shouting like there's no one for a hundred miles," he muttered.

"...Isn't there anyone for that far, though, is there?"

"Mm...fifty miles is more accurate. But that isn't the point; stealth is the point. There's no need to announce our presence here, at least not at that decibel level."

"Oh. Um...KF and I were kind of loud earlier. Was...was that bad?"

"You were excited. That's different than just hollering because you have an excuse to do so. Flash could have simply waved an arm or used the radio, as you and I did earlier."

It was a good point, but Robin noticed that he didn't mention it when they all came together between the two stacks of fish. "Hey!" he beamed at Kid Flash once he was certain Batman wasn't going to start an argument over backwoods etiquette.

"Hey! This is awesome. Isn't this awesome? I feel so fast. Faster than a fish, at least."

"That's _crazy_ fast."

"And you're, like, the fish whisperer, or a fish charmer, or something."

"It's called tickling," he informed him with a giggle.

"Whaaaat?!"

"I know! It's hilarious. 'Hi, I'm Robin and my special power is tickling fish.'"

"That sounds like an Aquaman skill."

"We should ask him!"

"Totally!"

"Or you could opt not to insult him," Batman overruled.

"Would that be an insult?" Robin craned his neck to ask.

"I dunno," Flash mused. "Maybe. It's hard to tell with him."

"It's a way to catch fish in order to eat them. You don't believe he'd be perturbed by that?"

"Eh. Maybe? Anyway, how many more do you want to catch before we head back? I don't know about you, but I'm not really looking forward to cleaning all of these."

"How many did we get?" Kid Flash inquired. "It looks like a lot, but they're hard to count when they're all piled together."

"There are twenty," Batman said.

"_Wow_!" both children exclaimed at the same time. Grinning, they bumped fists and congratulated each other.

When they'd finished, Flash went on. "To be honest, twenty should be enough for lunch and dinner, I think. If we add some berries it will be more than enough."

"But you ate, like, a million hot dogs last night!" Robin reminded him. "How are twenty fish going to fill you up?" Once he'd gotten past the killing aspect of the task, he'd found himself enjoying the activity a great deal. The sneaking up, luring your opponent into a sense of false security, and then pouncing when they least suspected it was very Batmanesque. He wouldn't have been sorry to have to keep going.

"I think I'll eat light for the next few days. Those hot dogs were good going in, but...well, I'll just leave it at that," he finished, obeying Batman's sudden scowl.

"Oh. Gotcha. Sorry."

"It was a logical question," Flash shrugged. "It just happens to have a less-than-pleasant answer. But I think we have plenty of fish for lunch and dinner. What do you think, Kid?"

"I think I'd rather eat some of these fish than catch any more."

"Well, there you have it. Unless you two have any arguments, we're ready to start the next part."

"Then let's get these strung up and go," rumbled overhead. "There's still a great deal to do today."

"Wait!" Robin cried out. "...You practiced running on water earlier, right, KF?"

"Yeah. But I'm still not very good. I barely got across the creek, and my boots were wetter than they should have been at the end."

"Can I see anyway, when we get back to camp? Please?" he begged. "I've never seen someone run on the water, and it will be twice as cool if it's you doing it."

"I can do it again, sure. But you should see Flash; he's _way_ better at it than I am."

"How far can _you_ run on water, Flash?" He half-expected Batman to protest either the question or the waste of precious time, but he remained silent. _He must not know, either,_ he smirked. There was very little that the man behind him didn't know about his compatriots, so to strike upon something that had been missed was cause for self-satisfaction. The only way it could get better would be if he actually got an answer...

The elder speedster wasn't known for hiding himself from his friends, fortunately, and he replied without a trace of concern in his voice. "I ran across Lake Superior once," he recalled. "The short way, not the long way, but it was still a hundred and fifty miles. Running on water's tough because you've got to move fast enough to compensate for drag and water tension. That's just on a flat surface like this one," he swept his arm over the lake. "This would be nothing like Superior, where you have to dodge the waves, deal with the wind, watch for boats...I never want to do Superior again, we'll put it that way."

KF's eyes were sparkling with adoration and amazement, and Robin couldn't blame him. "That's so awesome," he murmured. "Seriously, that's one of the coolest things I've ever heard."

"Heh. Thanks. It's not exactly the Pacific Ocean, but I'm pretty proud of it."

"Mm...the issue of how far you can run above the water aside," Batman reminded them, "we have fish to clean."

"Is that as much fun as catching them was?" KF asked.

"No." The mouth beneath the cowl twisted into a half-smirk, half-grimace.

"What?! But we caught them all, so...are you guys gonna clean them?"

Robin held his breath, hoping against hope that the answer would come in the affirmative.

"Nope," Flash jumped in. "Not a chance. We'll help you figure out how to do it, but we won't do it for you. You've got to learn how to do it yourself."

"Aww, _man..._"

He was disappointed by the result of Kid Flash's inquiry, but he knew better than to try and argue the point. "So...what happens now, then?"

"Now?" Batman looked down at him, and he sensed that their eyes met despite the two sets of lenses blinding them to one another. "Now the work begins."


	16. Chapter 16

By the time they walked back into camp an hour later, Robin was determined to never, ever work in a fish processing plant. It wasn't that he minded toting the dead trout, which they'd strung onto zip ties to make carrying them easier. He wasn't even bothered by their sightless eyes and gaping mouths, or by having had to shove his fingers into their gills to lead the plastic cuffs through. What had gotten him were the guts.

They had stopped at the mouth of the creek, right where it emptied into the beaver pond. The reason, Batman explained, was that this way the local carnivores – the bear they had seen included – were less likely to be drawn upstream by the smell of fish innards. It made sense, and neither child saw fit to complain about having less weight to carry home. They'd watched quietly as they were shown how to slice open the pale bellies, KF peering in fascination, Robin wearing a squeamish grimace. Then the difference between milt and roe was pointed out, not because Batman had felt like giving an impromptu lesson on piscine sex but because he wanted them to understand the uses of each. The explanation hadn't helped Robin's stomach, but he'd stashed the knowledge away despite that.

It was their turn next. Batman lent Kid Flash his knife so that both boys could practice at the same time, and they fell to their task. While Robin had been faster at catching trout, his friend proved to be superior at cleaning them. "...How are you doing that so...just...nonchalantly?" he asked as another emptied corpse landed on the bank. "Don't you think it's gross?"

"Yeah," KF nodded. "Kind of. That's why I'm doing it fast. The faster we go through them, the faster we're done, you know?"

"I guess so, but..." But it still grossed him out. He could do it – he _was_ doing it – but it wasn't a task he would ever take pleasure in. "...It's still ew."

It was with a great sense of relief that he now tromped back into the clearing with a stringer of fish dangling from one hand and his un-berried cape thrown over his shoulder. "...Should we build up the fire, Batman?"

"Yes. You'll need to do that, and you'll also need to find eight forked sticks and at least two large, flat rocks."

"I'll get the sticks and the rocks, Rob," Kid Flash volunteered.

"Really?" Flash looked surprised. "I figured you'd want to play with fire."

"Eh. I kind of feel like running around instead."

"I'm okay with that," Robin agreed. "But where should we put our fish? We don't want them to get dirty again."

"What about if we hang them from the front of our tents?" the younger speedster suggested, pointing at the jutting centerpoles of their bivys.

"No," both adults corrected immediately.

"But-"

"Do you _want_ to wake up with a bear's nose in your face, Kid?" Flash queried.

"...Oh. Uh, no. Never mind."

"But we've already brought them into camp," Robin said, glancing down at his catch, "and we're going to cook them here, too. Isn't that bad?"

"It's much better than hanging them right over where you sleep," Batman rumbled. "...But you have a point."

He thought hard. Cooking fish, he knew, was a good, heavy smell, and as much as he wouldn't have minded going to sleep with that scent in his nostrils he didn't want to wake up in Flash's scenario. They needed to be further from camp, but everything was woods up until the 'crash site.' The only exception was... "What about the beach? It's not much further away, but we could make a fire out there, couldn't we?"

His mentor glanced at him. "Yes. We could do that."

"You'd have to use another match, though," KF frowned.

"Not necessarily," he answered, his mind clicking along as he formed a plan of action. "If I do it right, I could build up this fire, then go out to the sand to get that one ready. Once I have kindling and stuff in place, all I have to do is take a burning stick to the new spot. Then we can bank this fire again."

"What about the trees between here and the creek?" Batman challenged. "You might start a much bigger fire than you intend to if you go through the brush with a flame in your hand."

"I'll have KF walk in front of me and push everything out of the way."

"...It sounds like a good plan to me," Flash shrugged.

"Then let's enact it," the cowled figure gave in.

"Sweet!" KF cheered. "Beach party! Good idea, bro! But wait...we still didn't figure out where to put the fish while we're doing all that other stuff."

"Oh, right. Um...crud. We could hang them from a tree, I guess?"

"You could," Batman agreed, "but they would still drip onto the ground. For now, I will make an exception to the usual rule and allow you to use one of the canisters. After the fish is cooked and we've eaten, we'll show you how to hang a bear bag."

Flash appeared bearing one of the containers almost before anyone noticed that he was missing. "Here we go. One smell-proof, leak-proof, bear-proof can." He paused. "They really ought to figure out a way to make diapers all of those things."

"What do you care about diapers all of a sudden?" Kid Flash looked up suspiciously. "Is there something you need to tell me? I mean...am I getting a cousin or something?"

"Relax," Flash chuckled. "There's nothing like that going on. I have no personal interest in diapers, I've just been around enough of your aunt's friends' babies to know that there's a lot of room for the diaper industry to grow on the leak and smell prevention fronts. As for the bears, I figure that's just good marketing. Who wouldn't buy a bear-proof diaper?"

"Oh. Well...so long as _you_ don't need to buy any diapers any time soon."

"Nah, I'm nowhere near old enough for incontinence. Chill out; you're still the only kid in my life, Kid."

"...Okay."

With Kid Flash's concerns allayed and their catch temporarily secured, the speedsters zipped off, going together in case the bear from earlier in the day was lingering in the area. Robin,meanwhile, concentrated his efforts on re-kindling their original fire, bending down and blowing gently on the first promising coal he uncovered. He was so lost in his efforts that he didn't realize his mentor was staring at him until he finally rose from the cheerful little flames he'd puffed back to life. It was only as he settled back to watch it crackle that he saw the pensive twist to the man's mouth. He didn't think he'd messed up restarting the fire, and he couldn't imagine what else he might have done wrong, so he asked. "...Batman? Is something wrong?"

"The fish that you caught." He stopped.

"...Yeees?" _I did it the way you said,_ he thought, cocking his head to one side. _What was wrong with it?_

"...You went after progressively larger ones."

_...Oh. _So that was the problem. Trust Batman to have noticed his pattern, he sighed to himself. "Um...yeah. I thought there'd be more food on a big fish, you know?"

"Mm. And was that the only reason you picked those particular specimens?"

He dropped his eyes to the burning logs. "...No."

"Why else, then?"

"I..." He sighed again, this time audibly. "I decided I didn't want to...to kill babies." A lump formed in his throat, and he swallowed it down. "The big ones were probably older, I figured. They'd had more chance to live. So I went after them. Plus...well, they fought more than the little fish did, and that made it easier to smack them in the head, you know? So...I hope that was okay. I was just trying to be fair about it."

"I would say you managed it. But there's something you need to keep in mind."

Robin raised his head. "What's that?"

"Fish are like people."

He blinked for several long seconds. "...What?"

"Fish are like people," Batman repeated. "The bigger they are, the harder they are to catch and to keep caught. That's how they became big fish, was by being sneaky, slippery, and a little bit lucky, and they stick to those tactics until the end. The thing to keep in mind is what size fish you can handle. A larger trout is one thing; a larger fish overall is something different. Could you do what you did today with a salmon and be successful? Yes, I believe you could, at least with a small one. But tell me; would you dare to tickle a shark?"

"That's a dumb question," fell out of his mouth before he could stop it. "...Sorry," color flooded his cheeks. "But _no_, of course not. That wouldn't work, I don't think, and it would be _way_ too dangerous."

"Exactly. You would need to use a different method if you wanted to fish for sharks."

"Right." He hesitated as a glimmer of an idea about where this conversation was heading shone in the back of his mind. "...Is this about this fall? About Scarecrow and Poison Ivy and the promise you made me?"

"...Yes."

"You're not changing your mind, are you?"

"No. You were promised bigger targets, and you'll get them. A few of them will be sharks, Robin," he warned. "You'll have new methods with which to tackle them, but no matter what way you use a shark is a shark. You can't tickle it for long without losing an arm, and you'd be well advised not to dawdle when you're trying other techniques, either. So before you go diving in after one," he leaned forward, the seriousness of his gaze bleeding through his lenses to permeate the atmosphere, "make sure you can handle everything leading up to it. Do you understand?"

For a minute the only sound was the snap of the fire. "I think so," Robin said finally. "You're saying that I shouldn't get frustrated if you don't take me out after sharks right away, even with my summer training?" It was a disappointing thought, but after the fish analogy it sort of made sense.

"That's part of it. I don't believe that it will take you long to prove your prowess with the sizes between trout and sharks, but you have to prove it nonetheless."

"But I've already helped with a shark," he pointed out.  
Batman's lips tightened. "You're referring to Zucco?"

"...Yes." He'd managed to put away the painful memories that had assaulted him earlier in the trip, but hearing that name spoken out loud cast light on them again. "He was a shark, don't you think?"

"I would say he qualified, yes, and you did well with him. But a large part of your success that night was sheer luck, Robin. Your raw skill was present in great quantities, but chance was a bigger factor than it should ever be when one is facing a shark." A beat passed. "...Just don't go after things that are too large for you to handle. Someday you'll be capable of tackling any size fish that you want, but you have to work up to it. Otherwise..." A faint shudder seemed to run through him. "Otherwise, you may end up as fish food. Got it?"

He got it. "Okay, Batman. But..."

"But?"

"Well...aren't sharks easier to catch with two people than with just one?"

"...Yes. They are. That's why you'll be helping me with sharks long before you're allowed to go after them with only your own two hands."

That was all the promise it took to bring a grin back to his face. "I'd rather fish with you than by myself anyway," he shared. "So that's okay."

"...Good."

A companionable silence drew out between them after that. It was only broken when the Flashes came back into the clearing along with a rush of air. The fire dimmed, then flared back up. "You didn't move it yet, bro?" KF frowned around his armful of forked sticks.

"Huh? Oh. No," Robin shook his head. His mentor wouldn't want the others to know that they'd been having a weighty discussion, so he fabricated an excuse. "We wanted to wait for you guys. You know, the brush?"

"Oh, right. Well, let's go! I'm hungry, and I bet that fish is going to be _awesome_."

"Take these down to the sand with you," Batman, who was holding out their four hot-dog skewers, broke in. "You'll need them."

"We'll have to take logs down, too. I guess we'll come back for those," he shrugged as he accepted his load. "...Lead the way, KF."

The redhead raised a piece of wood over his head, somehow cradling the other seven in his second arm. "To the beach!" he announced, then turned around and marched into the trees.

Robin glanced at the black-clad man before he followed. "There aren't any sharks on this beach," he promised. "Just trout, and maybe a bear. Is that okay?"

The lips beneath the cowl jerked into a vague smirk. "That's fine, Robin." He nodded in the direction Kid Flash had gone. "Go on, now."

"Can do!" Then, with one of his own sticks held up in the air and a smile on his face, he paraded towards the creek.


	17. Chapter 17

Four split trout hovered above the fire a short while later, their scales slowly browning until they matched the sand. Batman watched them, monitoring the children's fish as well as his own. Occasionally he glanced down the beach to where the boys were holding races. Kid Flash, having demonstrated his prowess at making it most of the way across the creek without getting wet, had issued a challenge to see which method was faster, running or flying. Robin had taken up the friendly gauntlet, producing the special grappling gun he'd received for his birthday a few months earlier to help him prove that being airborne was better. They had counted down and taken off over the water several times now, but their giggles at the end of each heat left them unable to come to a decisive conclusion.

He could have ordered them to come back and cook their own dinners, but he let them go. After the heavy conversation he had just held with his son, it seemed only fair to allow him some play time. _If he would just stop demonstrating that disturbing penchant of his for going after prizes that are so much bigger than him_, Batman grimaced as he re-adjusted one of the abandoned skewers. _Then maybe I could worry less about him._ Still, Robin had listened and promised to obey, and for now that was the best he could ask for.

Flash's voice broke into his reflection. "You really took me seriously last night, didn't you?"

"...What?"

"When I said to loosen up and try to make training fun. You took me seriously."

He narrowed his eyes at the man who was sprawled out across the fire from him. "It was my understanding that you intended for me to take you seriously."

"It was, it was! Don't get the wrong idea about that. But..." The speedster hitched one shoulder in a half-shrug. "I guess I didn't expect you to do so well with it. I figured I'd have to keep reminding you."

"I do not usually need to be told something more than once, Flash," he growled.

"Batman, dude, chill. I'm trying to give you a _compliment_. I know you don't get them often, at least not for your ability to do things like go easy on people, but...you've earned it. Look at them," he tilted his head towards where their boys had just completed another sprint and lay in a tangled, laughing heap on the bank. "They're having exactly the sort of good time that kids _should_ have when they're camping. On top of that, they're learning a lot." He paused. "You're a pretty damn good teacher when you actually stop and consider the needs of your students. I have to admit, I'm jealous. Half the time I feel like I do more screwing around with Kid than teaching him."

"His skills have progressed since you first took him as a partner. That's not a compliment," he added when the other man's eyes went wide. "Merely a statement of observable fact."

"Thanks anyway," Flash grinned. After a moment his face grew pensive again. "He _has_ progressed, but a lot of that's because he pushes me to show him new stuff. If I know you, you have a whole regimen lined out of what you're going to introduce Robin to, and when, and how...I couldn't do it. Homework, and tests, and all of that – don't deny that you assign him stuff like that, Superman already told me that you do – would put Kid in a snit and give me a migraine the size of the bear they saw earlier."

"...Where are you going with this?"

"It's just...do you think I'm cheating him out of something, out of some part of his education, by _not_ doing those things?"

Batman might have scoffed had the speedster's expression not been so pleading. Instead he gave a thoughtful hum and tried to figure out what he could say to that. Bucking other people up wasn't listed on his resume, but he understood firsthand the stress that came with wondering if you weren't the best role model for your own son. It wasn't a pleasant feeling, and he saw no good reason to let the man stew in it unnecessarily. "You and I are very different people, Flash," he answered slowly. "As are Kid Flash and Robin. You respect what I'm doing with Robin because you see it working, but the success of my method doesn't invalidate your own."

"But your method works on Kid, too. That's the thing, is I see that – I've seen it this weekend, especially – and I wonder if I can do better than I have been."

"We...all...can," he forced out. _Good god, first I sort-of admit that we're friends and now_ _that falls out of my mouth. What is wrong with me?_

_It's almost like you're becoming a human being,_ Bruce teased.

_Leave me alone._

_ I wish I had popcorn for this conversation._

_ Shut. Up._

"What? No way. I thought you were perfect."

Still caught up in his internal conversation, it took Batman an instant to realize that the deadpanned comment had been a joke. When he did, he gave a mighty snort of wry amusement that he could only half-cover by coughing. "In many ways, Flash," he defended himself. "...But perhaps not all."

"Perhaps, huh?"

"...Perhaps."

"Well, that's a load off of my mind." Stretching, Flash sat up. "If _you're_ not even perfect, then what's the point of trying?"

"You know the answer to that."

"Of course. I'm just screwing around. See? There I go again."

"...It's who you are, and it works for him. So...be a bit stricter, or more organized, if you think it will help. If you try something and it _does_ work, you'll stick with it no matter how bad the migraines get."

"You know that from experience, huh?" Flash teased.

"Mm. Call it a hunch."

"You know, for a man who professes to not believe in prescience you sure do get a lot of good hunches. But you won't hear me complaining, at least not so long as they keep being right." Reaching out, he jiggled the nearest stick. "Speaking of premonitions, I have one that it's about lunch time."

"Agreed." The delicate smell of fire-cooked fish floated on the air, making even Batman's hardship-trained mouth water. Turning, he searched for the boys, his arm rising to wave them closer. It froze halfway to hailing position when he found nothing but empty bank on either side of the stream. "...Flash, where are they?" _How did I not see them leave? _he cursed himself. He'd gotten caught up in the conversation, certainly, but even putting his lack of attention aside it wasn't like Robin to disappear without telling him where he was going. Zucco and Gobblehead had been the only exceptions so far, and while two instances in twenty-one months wasn't exactly a clean record there were no extenuating circumstances to explain his absence now, let alone that of Kid Flash.

The speedster appeared far less concerned than Batman felt. "They can't have gone too far. Heck, we _know_ Kid's close by; there's food on the fire. He woudn't abandon that for anything." Tiliting his head back, Flash let loose a loud summons. "Hey, Kid!"

"We have radios," Batman ground out as the call echoed back to them.

"Oh. Yeah...sorry. Just habit," the other man said sheepishly. "Give them a second. I'm sure he heard me."

Sure enough, a low squeal rose in the distance and grew louder as it approached. The boys appeared out of the foliage lining the opposite edge of the creek, sliding through the air some ten feet above the ground and shrieking like joyful banshees. Both had their hands crowded together on the zip-line's grip, but it was clear even from a distance that Robin was in control of their acceleration. He braked just before they hit the tree at which the almost invisible wire stopped. KF dropped off, tumbling messily when he hit the sand, while the dark-haired child wrapped his legs around the trunk and retracted both ends of his tool. Securing it back in his belt, he leaped, somersaulted, and landed beside his friend.

"Dude, that was the wicked!" Kid Flash trumpeted, offering his fist.

"Best birthday present ever," Robin beamed as their knuckles met.

"Ahem," Batman cleared his throat. Across the fire Flash was chuckling, but he was less than amused. "...Robin."

"Uh-oh," the boy winced and climbed to his feet. "C'mon, bro. We're either in trouble, dinner's ready, or both."

"It's the middle one," the elder speedster called.

"Yes!" KF cheered. "Food!"

"And an inquiry," Batman told them firmly as they drew up to the fire. "Where were you?"

"Um...well, we were racing, right?" Robin began to explain. "And we noticed that there's this kind of straight-away through part of the forest. I thought...I thought it might be cool to try out my zip-line in there, since KF's never been on it and...well...I guess I got so excited to show him how it worked that I forgot to tell you where we were going." He swallowed visibly. "But we were only, like, a hundred yards away, honest."

"We heard you call for me," Kid Flash backed up his partner-in-crime. "But we were all ready to go, so-"

"-So we figured it would be fastest just to come back on the line," Robin finished.

He stared at his son, considering his options. "...Well? Did you have fun?" he queried finally.

"Uh-huh. It's the best birthday present ever, just like I told KF." His hand wrapped around the small gun as if he feared that it would be taken away after his mistake. "I love it."

"...Good." He would forgo the lecture, he decided; it was obvious that both boys understood why they had almost been in trouble, and the odds were good that they wouldn't run off again and thus risk losing a chance to practice with the zip-line later on. "Since you're safe, sit and eat. We have sixteen more fish to cook, and whatever we don't consume you'll have to learn how to secure before we can go onto other things."

"Uh-oh," it was Kid Flash's turn to mutter nervously. All eyes rotated to him, and he flushed red. "Was I supposed to wait?" he asked, his eyes darting down to the half-devoured fish he had spread open on the rock beside him. "Sorry."

"Kiiiid," Flash's familiar groan sounded.

Batman merely shook his head and bit back a smirk. "Grab your fish, Robin," he ordered. "If Kid Flash is that ravenous, you must be hungry too."

"I _so_ am. Camping is hard work." He plopped down beside the fire as he spoke, then yanked his skewer out of the sand. The hot trout was transferred easily from the stick to the stone thanks to his heat-proofed gloves, and a moment later he popped the first flaky white sliver of meat between his lips. "...But it's so good," he added.

"I love camping," Kid Flash contributed around a mouthful.

"We should do this every weekend," Robin sighed. "Just eat tons of berries and fish and pretend like our plane crashed. Then if it ever really does we'll be _super_ prepared. It won't even be like anything bad happened; we'll just pretend we're on another camping trip."

"Think Superman would be ticked if we both missed every JLA meeting between now and September?" Flash joked.

"I don't think that's going to be a problem," Batman answered. Spotting the beginnings of a pout on his protege's face, he continued. "You have many other things to learn this summer, Robin."

"...Oh. Right. Well...maybe just _one_ more trip, then? Please?"

"Yeah, please?"

"Yeah, Batman," the elder speedster grinned as he tagged along behind the pleas of the children. "Please?"

"...I'll consider it."

"Is that a yes?" KF asked Robin.

"No, but it's a good sign."

"Ahem."

"Sorry, Batman. Um...aren't you going to eat?"

He glanced at his meal, the fins of which were beginning to blacken along the edges. "Yes. I am." If it tasted anything like it smelled, he thought as he pulled it away from the heat, he was in for an Alfred-grade delicious lunch.

* * *

"...Hey, Batman?"

"Yes, Flash?" he answered without looking away from the tousled head that had closed its eyes atop his knee some ten minutes before.

"Do you think we should let them sleep for a while? They worked hard this morning, and they played hard, too. I don't know about Robin, but Kid still gets kind of cranky in the afternoons without a nap. I know he's kind of old for that, but I think it might be something about our metabolisms plus his age."

"Or their late schedules." He'd never noted his partner being regularly ill-tempered in the evenings, but then according to Alfred he frequently spent fifty percent or more of the ride home from school dozing in the back seat, so that might explain it.

"Yeah, that too."

Batman waffled. They still had a great deal to do in the twenty-four hours they had left, but what good would getting to the next lesson be if the children were too sleepy or too ornery to absorb it? "We'll let them sleep," he ruled, "for a little while. But not down here. Let's put the fish away and move them to the shelters."

"Away from the bear signal?"

"...The what?"

"The bear signal. You know...the fish smell?"

It was almost an amusing pun, and he felt his lip twitch. "Correct."

He manuevered out from under Robin's head carefully, then set about rinsing the bear can, sealing it, and fetching a cleaner one. Once he'd packed the ten remaining trout – now all cooked and ready to be warmed and eaten – into the new container, he sent Flash to replace them in their hiding spot. The speedster had put out the fire already, and when he returned from his task all that remained was to move the sleeping youths back to the bivouacs. That operation was carried out in silence, both men hunching over their proteges as they passed through the brush in an attempt to keep errant sticks from waking them.

Batman tugged the blanket up around Robin's shoulders once he'd slipped him into their makeshift tent. The idea of a nap wasn't unappealing, especially with a belly full of warm, fresh-caught fish, and he eyed the space beside his son breifly before pulling back. He would see what Flash was doing first, he decided. If the other man laid down, then he would give the thought more serious consideration; in the meantime, however, he had no interest in having his stamina classed as equal to that of a pair of pre-pubescent boys.

He didn't have to wait long to find out what Flash's plan was. They had only been sitting beside the once-again banked main fire for a couple of minutes when he stretched and yawned. "Man," he shook his head. "Think I'm as worn out as they are, after all."

"Mm."

"What do you figure the odds are of that bear coming to sniff around?"

"It's possible, but we took long enough cooking that I think it would have already made an appearance if it was going to." There was a breeze picking up in the tops of the trees now that he hoped would blow the last of the food scent away, but that was no reason to be less aware of the possibility of an ursine visitor.

"Or last night, even. Looking back now, we probably shouldn't have cooked and eaten those dogs in camp."

"Possibly." They'd been careful, keeping the cans closed when they weren't fetching out another pack of hot dogs or buns and putting all of the garbage away before it accumulated in an odiferous pile, but he recognized that they had also been lucky. The fire ring was several dozen feet from their sleeping area, it was true, but that wasn't the point. "It was a less than ideal place to do it, but we got away with it. I doubt we would have been so fortunate tonight had we cooked twenty trout here."

"No kidding. Damn, those things were good, though. I'm looking forward to the dinner encore." He yawned once again, and Batman had to fight to keep from imitating the gesture. "Hey...just out of curiosity..."

"What is it?"

"You _are_ going to think about another trip this summer, right?"

"I said I would, did I not?"

"Yeah. But I want to know if you meant it, or if you were just stalling for time."

"...I wouldn't want it to be in this environment. They need training in other biomes."

"But you _do_ want to keep training them."

"Was that a question?"

"No. But...where?"

"I don't know, Flash," he rumbled, annoyed. "I don't even know if it's happening yet. But if it does," his tone dropped some of its rough edges, "you'll be the first to know."

The speedster smiled. "You're a good egg, Batman," he said warmly, clapping him on the shoulder. "Don't forget that, huh? Now, I'm going to follow the excellent example being set by our partners and pass out for however long you let us sleep. So, if you'll excuse me..."

_...'A good egg,' _Batman repeated to himself as the other man made his way back to his bed. _Where he comes up with regionalisms like that, I'll never know. They can't all be Ohioan. _Knowing Flash, he made it a habit to constantly refresh his vocabulary with new ridiculous phrases. It didn't matter for the most part, he supposed; a good egg, after all, was far better than a bad one.

Their talk about the error of cooking in camp the previous night had left him unwilling to leave the sleepers unguarded. On the plus side, their short conversation about a potential fall training camp had given him something to think about while the others rested. Crouching, he ran cold ashes through his fingers and mused. There were so many options, all of them good and each with its own challenges... He began to list them off in his head, noting their pros and cons and working to determine which was the most natural successor to this weekend in the alpine forest.

Behind him, Flash's snores began in earnest, drowning out the local birdsong and reminding Batman that wherever they went next, they were going to need separate shelters again.

* * *

**Author's Note: I hope you're all still enjoying our jaunt into the woods with Batman, Robin, and the speedsters. For anyone who's interested in seeing exactly how they cooked their fish, check out my blog, which is accessible through my fanfic profile page. Happy reading!**


	18. Chapter 18

When Batman went to wake Robin an hour later he found that he had rolled over in his sleep. He rested now on his stomach with his head cradled in his folded arms, his injured ear turned upwards and a faint smile gracing his lips. Whatever dream he was having drew an occasional happy sigh. He radiated contentment, and the cowled figure hunched in the shelter beside him felt a strange urge to just sit and soak it in.

After a few minutes of watching him slumber, he grimaced and stretched out a hand. The afternoon was waning, and they had a great deal left to go over before it was time to leave the following day. His initial intention was to shake the boy's shoulder, but he stopped at the last moment and let his palm come to rest on the narrow back instead. "...Robin," he breathed.

"Mm..."

It was a curious little exhalation, and it made his mouth soften. His fingers began to draw slow circles on the fabric beneath them as he spoke his name again. "Robin."

"...Hm...?"

"It's time to get up."

"'M sleepy..."

"I believe you, but if you don't get up you risk the bear getting your dinner."

"The bear?!" He flew into a sitting position at that and stared expectantly out into the clearing. "Where..." He frowned. "Batman?"

He hadn't expected such a violent reaction, and for a moment his arm hovered where he'd jerked it back to avoid a collision. Finally he let it fall to his side and formed a loose fist around the lingering bed-warmth he'd absorbed. "The bear isn't here," he explained. "I was speaking in...well...potentialities."

"...So it could get our dinner, but it hasn't?"

"Correct." His partner had woken up fast, he noted appreciatively. It was a good trait to have in their line of work, and it pleased him to see it manifesting in the child at such a young age.

"So...why'd you wake me up, then, exactly?"

There was a hint of accusation in his voice, and Batman wondered if he remembered the seemingly pleasant vision he had been woken from. "Because it was the appropriate time to do so," he said evenly. "Why?"

Robin ducked his face. "I was having a good dream," he murmured. "I...I didn't want it to end, that's all."

So he _did_ remember. "...Robin-"

A snort from next door cut him off. "Whoa-ho," Flash's voice rang out. "Now that was a dream. What was in those trout, anyway?"

It was too late. He'd been about to press for details, but he didn't want to start what could turn into a tearful civilian conversation if the speedsters were going to be awake for it. "...We'll talk later," he ground out.

"It's okay, really. Honest, I-"

"No," he ordered. "We'll talk later." There had been too many intrusions of their daylight selves into this trip for him to just brush the latest event off. Something was bothering his son, and he was determined to learn what it was.

_Maybe you should leave that to me_, Bruce suggested. _You're not so good with tears_.

_Neither are you. You'd cry right along with him._

_ So what?_

_ So emotions cloud analysis. You know that. If you want him to cry less about the things he has seen, the best bet is to analyze what makes him sad. Then we have a better chance of avoiding his triggers in the future._

_ It's cute how you say that like you don't feel anything when he cries._

_ ...My point remains-_

"Hey, Batman!" Flash's voice broke in.

"...What?" he muttered.

"I don't think he heard you," Robin informed him.

"Damn it. What?"

"You _are_ awake." The other man's sleep-reddened face appeared upside-down in the entryway as he bent over to peer in at them. "Have a good nap, Rob?"

"Uh-huh," he nodded. "Did you?"

"Heh. Yeah, you could say that." He rubbed the back of his neck, his cheeks growing brighter for some reason that Batman had no interest in inquiring about. "Anyway, what's up? Other than us, that is."

"Batman said the bear might eat our dinner," the boy said.

"What?! All that good fish? Well, we can't let that happen." He straightened, leaving only his legs visible from inside the shelter. "Hey, Kid! Dinner's in danger!"

"I don't care...wait, what?!" There was an audible rustle next door as KF freed himself from his blankets. His feet appeared beside those of his mentor, followed by his face as he bent down. "What's that mean, 'dinner's in danger'?" he inquired with mild panic in his voice.

"It means that it's time for you both to learn how to secure your food from bears and other animals without using an airtight canister," Batman replied.

"Oh. Well c'mon, let's do it, then! There's no way I'm letting some bear eat our trout!"

"We could fight it," Robin suggested, wrapping his arms around his knees and grinning. "Just because we ran away earlier doesn't mean we couldn't fight it for the fish."

"Yeah! We'll punch that bear into next week! We weren't afraid earlier, that was just...um..."

"A strategic retreat."

"Yeah! A strategic retreat. What Rob said." Kid Flash paused. "...So aren't you guys coming? We've got to save our food!"

"Bro," Robin giggled, "it's kind of hard to climb out of here when you're blocking the door."

"...Oh yeah..." He backed away, and when Batman straightened into the open air a moment later he saw that the redhead was blushing. "There's a good way to protect it, right? Our food?" he asked. "Like, we don't have to make it gross so that the bear doesn't want it, do we? Because I'd rather just fight than make the food nasty."

"No one," the cowled figure made clear, "is going to be fighting any bears. Unless a black bear attacks you, fighting one is a very good, and a very stupid, way to die."

"I'm _not_ letting it eat my dinner," KF crossed his arms. "No way."

"You won't have to," Flash assured him. "Batman's going to show you how to make sure it can't get to your food at all. It can't eat what it can't reach."

"Well...okay."

"Good. But Kid?"

"Yeah?"

"Seriously, don't ever fight a bear if you don't have to. They might look like cuddly pushovers, but they aren't. So don't risk it, huh?"

Kid Flash blinked up at his partner for a second. "Okay. We won't fight the bear, right, Rob?"

"Of course not. I was _joking_, KF. We're not gonna fight a bear, we're just a couple of kids!" Robin tittered again, then moved to his friend's side to poke him playfully in the shoulder. "Fight a bear," he teased.

"Hey, between the two of us we could fight anything!"

"Whether or not that was a factual statement isn't something we have time to get into," Batman interrupted. "Not if you want to secure your fish, at least." The children fell silent and turned to him. "Are you ready?"

"Yes," they chorused.

"Good. Kid Flash, bring the bear canister with the fish in it. Flash will show you which one. Robin, where's your cape?"

"Over there," he nodded to where a bright yellow-and-black flag hung from a tree branch. "It was still a little drippy from being rinsed when we got back, so I put it up to dry."

"Bring it over to the fire."

"Okay."

When they had reconvened beside the rock ring, he instructed them in how to bundle their leftovers up. Using the spare coil of grappling line that was part of their standard kit, Robin wrapped and knotted until the package was secure. There was still a huge amount of rope left, but Batman told him to leave it for the time being and led them into the trees.

"Here," he stopped some two hundred and fifty yards from camp. "This is a bit further than you have to come for safety, but given your encounter this morning we'll take the precaution. Now you need to find a tree."

"Well, that was easy," KF and Flash joked at the same time.

"…A suitable tree," he glared at them. "One that has a sturdy branch about fifteen feet above the ground."

Standing in the midst of old-growth forest as they were, it didn't take long to find what they were looking for. "Do I just climb up there are tie it off?" Robin asked. "Because that's super easy."

"No. Do not climb up there."

"Why not? I can climb a tree just as good as any bear."

"As well as," he corrected. "As to your plan, the point is for the rope and the bag to be out of the bear's reach. If you hang it somewhere that you can reach, you're hanging it somewhere that the bear can also reach."

"But I weigh less than a bear. I can go out further onto limbs and stuff."

"Perhaps. But as you grow that will no longer be the case. If you're going to learn a way of doing something, it's best to learn one that you can use your entire life. Besides that, even at your current weight you would have to climb at least six feet out from the trunk. These trees will work for our purposes, but they aren't the climbing trees of back home. You could very easily have the wood snap under you." He paused. "Out here there's no help if you hurt yourself, Robin. Being a bit overcautious about playing around in unfamiliar trees might save your life in a situation like this one."

He felt that he'd just given an unusually long lecture, but he wanted to head his son's penchant for tree-climbing off at the pass. Sudden whims to wrestle bears were not what killed most backcountry adventurers, he knew; foolish mistakes and lack of forethought about seemingly simple tasks were. The whole point of this weekend was to make sure that neither of the boys ended up as one of those statistics, so he'd pounded the lesson home.

Fortunately Robin had understood the seriousness of the topic. "That makes sense," he nodded. "You're right, these trees don't look like their branches would be safe very far out. But how are we supposed to get the food up there if I can't climb?"

Satisfied that the message had been received, he pushed on with their task. "You need a bag of rocks."

"A bag of rocks?" Kid Flash asked, looking confused. "What, is the bear supposed to eat that instead?"

"...I think it's for gravity, KF," Robin answered, staring up at a promising limb some seventeen feet above the ground. "Is that right, Batman?"

"More or less, yes."

It took a few minutes, but the boys figured out that with a little re-arranging they could reorganize the younger child's supplies and leave themselves with an empty pouch. Sliding it off of his belt, they scurried about the forest floor in search of stones to fill it. Once that was done it took relatively little time to complete the hanging. The only hitch came when Batman ordered his son to cut the grappling line to length.

"…You _really _want me to cut it?"

"Yes." It wasn't something he had ever told him to do before – lines were sacred, and one didn't tamper with them any more than necessary – but in this case it was important. "You have two hundred more feet than you need still attached to your food. You could leave it there, but why would you? You may need it for something else later, and you might not be able to come back here to get it when you do. It's better to have it on you, just in case."

"I thought our lines are, like, impossible to cut, though."

"They are if you don't have a diamond knife. But you do."

"Oh. Right." Despite having the proper tools, he struggled to sever the rope. "This is tough!"

"It's designed to be. Here." Taking the blade, Batman made the cut with one hard tug. "...I didn't expect you to be able to get through it easily this time," he shared. "You should be able to do so in another year or so, and had you kept working at it you would have eventually caused enough damage to split it, but it's fine for now."

"So do we tie on the rock bag and throw it over the branch now?"

"Correct."

Ten minutes later they were done. "Woo-hoo!" KF cheered as they stood looking up at the dangling cape full of food. "No bear's going to eat _our_ dinner! Suck it, bear!"

Robin looked skeptical. "I know it can't get to it, but...can't it still smell it up there, Batman?"

"Possibly," he allowed. "Your cape isn't odor proof, although its waterproofing should help suppress smells to an extent."

"So what if we come back and the bear's standing here trying to get it? What do we do?"

"Back away and find some other food," Flash contributed.

"That would be your smartest option," Batman agreed. "It's better to go hungry until breakfast than to be something else's dinner."

"As unbelievable as that sounds," the elder speedster quipped.

"Good thing you carry rope and a carabiner, Rob," KF said.

"They're useful things to have. But we could have done it without the carabiner, I think, if we'd had to. It just would have been harder."

"It can be managed, but as you said, it's more difficult."

"But I had one, and now we're done! So what's next?"

"Food?" Kid Flash inquired hopefully.

"But we just put it away!"

"I know, but...it should be easy to take down and put back up now, right?"

"Um...yeah, but…well, what about berries? We could go look at where we saw the bear this morning, and you could pick some food while we're there. And we'd have Batman and Flash with us, and you know that _they_ could punch a bear if they had to. What about that?"

"...Eh. That'll work. Food's food."

"We're still checking your berries before you eat them," Flash instructed his protégé.

"But-! Actually, yeah," KF changed tack mid-stream. "That's probably good."

"...Batman? Can we?" Robin turned his face up to him, and the man beneath the cowl was hard-pressed to say no. He'd wanted to check out the area where the animal had approached his son in any case, and it would be a good opportunity to discuss bear habits. It was clearly a topic that they needed to cover, since the more he thought about it the more he believed that the youths had fled either a curious ramble or, at worst, a bluff charge.

"We'll need to make plenty of noise as we approach in case it's still in the area," he instructed them. "That's not good for stealth, but since no one is chasing you currently surprising the bear is the bigger threat. Understood?"

"We'll be noisy," his partner nodded.

"We're good at that," KF agreed.

"They _are_ pretty good at that," Flash admitted.

"Then let's make this one of those instances." Waving them ahead, he glanced up at the dangling food bag once more. _Not bad,_ he nodded. _Not too bad at all._

* * *

**Author's Note: I just wanted to take a moment and say how great it is to see so many people following this story. Having such a lovely audience certainly makes the muse work harder!**

**Also, I have posted a good infographic on my blog in case anyone is interested in the method that our boys use to hang the bear bag in the this chapter. Happy reading! **


	19. Chapter 19

It was with a brick of trepidation in his stomach that Robin approached the area in which he and KF had picked their breakfast berries. He knew that having Batman and Flash with them would make a huge difference if the bear was still in the area, but that wasn't enough to put a stopper in his fear. _Bears are hard,_ he frowned over what he'd told his mentor that morning. _But...why?_

The question had been in the back of his mind all day. It wasn't as if he was inexperienced when it came to large animals, so why had the bear, so much less towering than an elephant, frightened him into running? He supposed part of it was that he'd grown up with elephants, whereas today had been his first sighting of a wild bear. Still, bears were statistically so much less dangerous than elephants, at least according to what he'd read. Three human casualties a year was nothing compared to the hundreds per annum that more than one circus visitor had claimed elephants were responsible for.

Of course, those people had usually been flinging their angry numbers in his parents' faces after seeing him atop Eleanor in the show, so he wasn't sure he could trust their figures. Even if they had been exaggerating, though, three was a far cry from even _one_ hundred, let alone several. Despite that, elephants remained wholly unscary for him, while bears...bear were still hard.

He would have continued his line of reasoning had they not arrived just then at the exact spot where he had hopped up on KF's back and bidden him to run. "...This is where we were when we saw it," he informed the adults. "See? We left those berries behind because we thought they were poison, but we picked everything around them."

Batman's head turned as he swept the area with his eyes. Then he knelt and examined the smooth fruits Robin had pointed out. "...These _are_ poisonous," he verified.

"Whew," Kid Flash sighed. "Good thing I had you with me, Rob."

"You wanted to pick them?" Flash asked, wincing.

"Well...yeah. I was hungry," he defended himself. "And they looked good. I know better now."

"You do?"

"Yes! Honest!"

"Okay," the elder speedster held up his hands and backed off his questioning. "I'm just making sure, Kid."

"I know."

"All right. So long as you know."

"The best way to know for sure," Batman put in, "would be to pick a fresh batch while we're here. The bear seems to have moved on without denuding the entire area, so it wouldn't be a difficult task."

"But what if it comes back?" Robin asked almost before the last syllable had left the man's mouth. "It could, since there are still berries, right?"

"Yes. It could." For a moment he felt a measuring gaze resting on him, and he swallowed hard. "Where did you say the bear was?"

"Over there," Kid Flash pointed. "Kind of where the sun's coming through now."

"...Mm." Rising, he walked towards the few solid shafts of daylight that pierced the canopy. "Here?"

"Yeah," Robin confirmed. "That's where he stood up." The thing had been so tall, he remembered now. Its long claws had gleamed, and its teeth had flashed white when it had sniffed and its lips pulled back...no, elephants were definitely far less terrifying.

"Come here."

He obeyed without question, KF trailing behind him a few steps. It was comforting to know that his friend was still as wary of the creature as he was, but he still wished he could get over the fear. Maybe, he hoped as he drew to a stop, Batman would tell them something that would help.

"Do you see this?" the man asked, drawing a circle in the air over an impression in the dirt.

Kid Flash's eyes bulged. "Is that from its foot?!"

"Holy bear prints," Robin muttered. The mark was smaller than that left by an adult elephant, but it was bigger than Batman's hand, and that made it nothing to scoff at.

"It's from its rear paw. Here's the other one," he indicated an area to the right. "This is where it stood up to look at you. If the ground didn't have so much scrub on it we might be able to find other tracks for comparison, but since that isn't the case just note how deep these are. If there were additional prints you would be able to see that they were lighter."

"Is that...is that because the bear had all of his weight on only half his legs?" Robin inquired, trying not to let his voice tremble.

"Correct."

"So it's like if someone runs through a crime scene instead of walking? Sort of, I mean?"

"Yes. The analysis of running tracks is much more complicated than this – you know that – but it isn't a bad comparison. Based on what you described," Batman moved forward, back towards where they had started, "the bear got to this point before you fled?"

"Um...yeah, that's about right," he nodded. "Right, KF?"

"Yeah. It was right there, and still coming."

"Sounds like it was just trying to have some breakfast, too," Flash commented. "That's not much of a distance for a bear to cross. If he'd been going after you, you'd have known."

"It _seemed_ like he was coming fast, though," Robin protested. "He seemed...I dunno, angry."

"And hungry," Kid Flash added.

"He was probably just curious," Batman rumbled, not unkindly. "This far off of the trails and roads, there's a chance that that bear had never encountered humans before. He was likely trying to assess whether or not you were a threat. Had he actually charged you, Flash is right; it would have taken almost no time for him to cross this short of a distance."

"They have a top speed of thirty miles an hour," the elder speedster contributed.

"...Right. If he _had_ charged, the odds are good that it would have been a bluff charge. He would have tried to scare you before he fully committed himself to attacking. It's the same tactic we use for our low-grade offenders, Robin, the graffiti artists and petty thieves."

"Posing?" He paused, considering that. It wasn't unheard of for Batman to sweep down on some juvenile offender who was busy tagging a building or stealing a set of hubcaps and scare the living daylights out of them without throwing a single punch. Often those petrified newbie criminals would choose to go straight then and there; a few always stuck to their bad ways, but for many that was the only encounter they would ever have with the cowled figure. Knowing that bears did the same thing they did to try and avoid a unnecessary fight made them a little easier to relate to, but he still didn't really want to meet another one. "Huh."

"But," Batman went on, his tone serious, "do _not_ assume that that will always be the case. Just because they often bluff charge first doesn't mean that they won't ever forgo it. I advise that with bears you act as a thug would."

"...Huh?" Both boys screwed up their faces in confusion.

"Stand your ground until the bear actually touches you. If it does, then fight hard and dirty."

Robin gave a nervous giggle. "That's funny, how you want us to act like we're the bad guys fighting the bear."

"If the bear attacks, it won't pull any punches. Neither should you. But keep in mind that what I've just told you is only the case for black bears; grizzlies are different, and should _never_ be fought with."

"Gosh, I'm glad I can just, you know, run away," KF said. "This is complicated. I know I probably sound kind of chicken, but-"

"You don't," Flash cut him off. "If a bear charges you, Kid, don't even wait to see if it's a bluff charge. Just _go_."

"...You don't have that option," Batman reminded Robin. "Do not attempt to run from a bear. It will outrun even the fastest non-meta-human with little or no effort."

"Don't worry, Rob, I wouldn't leave you behind," Kid Flash swore. "I'd only just take off if I was by myself. If we were together it'd be like today."

"Thanks," he smiled. "Let's just hope I'm always with you when we see one, because I don't really want to fight a bear. They're too unpredictable."

"Exactly," Batman nodded. "Most animals do not fit into the psychological categories we use with people to try and anticipate their actions. That makes it difficult to know what they'll do next. Things like bears are best avoided altogether. If that proves impossible, then run or fight dirty as your skills allow."

Maybe _that_ was the problem, Robin mused in the brief silence that followed. People weren't exactly cut-and-dried as to their actions, but at least he knew how to think like a bad guy and make a good guess as to what they might do next. He had no idea how to think like a bear, though; they were strangers.

"...I have a question," KF broached suddenly, turning to his partner. "How come you just _knew_ how fast a bear can run?"

"Because it's good to know what you can and can't outrun if you need to. Haven't we talked about this?"

"Well yeah, but I've just been thinking about it like 'yes or no.' Can I outrun a bear? Yes. An asteroid? No. It's easier that way."

"Maybe so, but it's also super inaccurate. Actually," the elder speedster frowned, "it's inefficient, too. If you pour on the sort of speed you would need in order to outrun a tsunami when all you're trying to get away from is a bear, you're wasting energy."

"And in a survival situation, wasted energy could be the difference between life and death," Batman contributed.

"Right. So we'll work on that when we get home, Kid."

"Aww...you're gonna make me memorize a bunch of numbers? Seriously?"

"It won't be so bad. Think about it; you get to figure out just how much faster you are than a huge percentage of life on Earth."

"That doesn't really sound boring, bro," Robin had to admit. "I wish _I _was faster than, like, a house cat."

"You're smarter than one, though."

"Maybe, but there's no standard measurement for that. You can't be like 'I'm nineteen bajillion brain cells smarter than a dog.' That's not how it works."

"They should put a miles-per-hour on people's brains. Then we'd know how fast they think _and_ how fast they can run."

"That would be kind of neat. But brains are weird, remember? I don't know how well that would work."

"...Oh. Yeah, that's a good point. Still, someone could _try_."

"I guess so. Speaking of trying...do you want to pick some more berries here? You said you were hungry before."

"I am, but...the bear could still come back."

"Yeah, but at least we know how to deal with it now. Running and fighting dirty."

It was KF's turn to giggle. "You could hop up on my back, and Batman could hop up on Flash. Then we could all run together!"

"Oh, jesus, Kid..." Flash moaned.

Robin was laughing, practically in tears at the idea of Batman's cowl bobbing along between the trees as he rode on the other adult's shoulders. "That would be _hilarious_!" he gasped. A tiny part of him suddenly _wanted_ the bear to reappear, if only in the hopes of getting to see what had just been proposed.

"You're fortunate to have such vivid imaginations," Batman said dryly, "since that will never occur in real life."

"Awww...really?"

"...Yes, Kid Flash. Really."

"Bummer."

"At least we still have berries," Robin shrugged as he calmed down. "We can have a tasty dinner, just no show to go with it. And we can still make lots of noise while we pick, right?" he directed at Batman. "Just to help keep the bear from wanting to come back for seconds?" While hitting on the fact that bears were unpredictable had helped him understand his fear a little better, it hadn't banished it in the least. Picking their food unmolested sounded like much more fun than running for their lives, even if Flash _was_ carrying Batman.

"That's fine. But how are you going to carry what you pick back to camp?"

"Um..." It was a good question. The man's cape was holding their water supply; his own was wrapped around the leftover fish and hanging over a dozen feet in the air. He couldn't empty any more belt pouches without leaving supplies unprotected, and they had nothing else unless they started stripping. At a loss, he glanced around the forest for inspiration. "...What about bark?" he asked as a wide, peeling strip of tree skin caught his eye.

"Bark?"

"Yeah. Like, if we cut some little plates out of the thick stuff that's already pulling off of the trunk? I know you're not normally supposed to do that, but if we did it right it wouldn't hurt the trees, right?"

"Do you know how to remove it in such a way that you end up with a usable piece without damaging the tree?"

"Well, no, but...but don't you?"

"I do," Batman gave in. "Would you like to see how?"

"Yes, please!" Once they had fake platters and had picked their berries they could leave this section of the forest. In the morning, he decided, he would see if KF wanted to look elsewhere for food. His fear would be too obvious if he suggested that now, but tomorrow, when the adults weren't with him...KF would understand why he didn't want to come back here, especially without their protectors. "...What do you think, bro?"

"If it lets us take more berries back, I'm in."

"Then follow me," Batman ordered, pulling out his knife, "and watch closely."


	20. Chapter 20

The sun was sinking by the time they finished eating dinner. What few fish they had left went back into their aerial hidey-hole, and under Batman's orders they hiked through the semi-dark forest towards the 'crash site.' Robin followed his mentor closely, already having difficulty seeing the black-clad figure as he wove around the brush. As they went he found himself wishing that the man's cape wasn't still in use as a water bag; had he been wearing it, it would have been easy to grab the edge in order to keep from getting lost in the trees. Instead he struggled to keep up, feeling an immense flood of relief as they broke into the field uphill from camp.

It wasn't as dark here yet, and more importantly Batman had stopped. "We'll discuss navigation," he announced. "In the event that no one comes for you, you may have to find your own way back to civilization."Instructions on following water courses downstream to river-side towns, interpreting the sun's position in the sky, and star-following poured forth. Robin listened despite having heard most of it before, imagining that some crucial link might be made in his brain if he thought about wilderness direction-finding while he was actually in the middle of nowhere.

The best part of the lecture came when they were instructed to lie down in the middle of the clearing and find the stars and constellations that were called out by the adults. Many nights spent staring out of the Batmobile's windows on their way to and from the cave had made him a near-professional, so he let KF take the lead. Each time that the boy lying beside him seemed particularly stymied he would nudge him, point out the right points of light without speaking, and then smile when it was the correct answer.

It was now that Batman surprised him by breaking into story mode. Once the navigational uses of each formation had been identified, the myths behind them were explained. First were the seven sisters known as the Pleiades; then came the hunter Orion, believed by the Sumerians to represent their great hero Gilgamesh; next Ursa Major and Minor, whose associations with bears were noted with a hint of mirth. It was clear from the man's tone that he was relaying such stories as a cultural primer rather than because he expected them to be taken seriously, but Robin soaked the tales in nonetheless. They counted amongst their friends a daughter of the Greeks of old and a man from a distant planet, after all, he mused as his eyelids fell to half-mast. Why should it be difficult to believe that people had been turned into stars in the time before man could remember clearly?

Just as he was in danger of falling asleep under his mentor's unexpectedly soothing rumble, a low animal call echoed across the field. Jerking upright, Robin stared uselessly around the dark area. "That...was that a turkey?" he managed to ask.

"It kind of sounded like one," Flash agreed, also sitting up. "I didn't know they ranged this far west, though."

"It's a different subspecies here than at home," Batman contributed as he rose all the way to his feet. "...But they _are_ turkeys. There's a small group of them by the trees on the other side, judging from the direction of the noise."

"...Rob?" KF whispered, elbowing him. "You okay?"

He wasn't sure, so he just shrugged. He hadn't expected to see turkeys here, and knowing that they weren't quite the same type as Gobblehead didn't make him feel any better about it. The sound that had reached his ears a few moments before had caused the familiar twist in his chest that occurred whenever he saw a woman who looked like his mother or heard a laugh like that of his father, and it was taking a great deal of effort not to let a few tears loose as a result. He restrained them with something approaching violence, knowing that if he started crying now he wouldn't be able to stop. Everything had been so nice, with Batman's stories and the wide-open sky above; why had the stupid turkeys had to show up and ruin it? "Yeah," he breathed back finally. "I'm okay." Maybe if he said it convincingly enough it would come true...

A dark gauntlet appeared in front of him without warning. "...It's late. We should head back now."

Robin stared at the hand for a second before he took it and let it pull him to his feet. A subtle squeeze told him that his mentor had sensed his pain, and he swallowed hard. "Um...do you think you could tell more of those stories when we get back?" he requested in a quiet voice. "They're neat."

"You won't be able to see many stars from camp. The trees are too high."

"It doesn't matter. We know what they look like now, right KF?"

"Sure," Kid Flash's inky shadow agreed. "Could we skip the ones about gooey girls, though? I liked the stories about people doing things other than fainting from love or whatever_ way _better."

"Ditto," Flash chuckled. "Although it's nice to know that all I have to do is get your aunt to tell you the mythology behind _her_ name the next time you need to be annoyed."

"Aw, what?!"

"You're mistaken, Flash," Batman remarked. "Iris' mythological history is far from gooey, nor is it particularly boring."

"True, although it _is_ ironic," the elder speedster acknowledged. "You have to give it that."

"Why is it ironic?" Robin asked, temporarily distracted.

"Because Iris is married to Zephyrus," Batman answered, "who is the god of the west wind."

A beat passed. "...You should change your name," KF opined. "Zephyrus is way cooler sounding than...well, you know, your real name."

"If you knew some of the things Zephyrus got up to other than being married to Iris, Kid, you might change your mind about that," Flash laughed. "But the real Iris would have my hide if I told you what some of his…ah…_hobbies…_were, so let's not go there."

"I won't tell her you told me."

"Thanks. But I'm still not telling you."

"Aww...bummer."

"That being the case," Batman, whose fingers were still clasping Robin's invisibly, said, "we should go."

"But will you tell more stories?" he asked, having never gotten an answer. "Please?"

"...A few short ones, yes. But then it's bedtime. You have more tasks ahead of you in the morning." The man paused. "Take Kid Flash's hand so that we don't get separated in the dark."

"And give me your other one, Kid," Flash ordered. "I don't want to get lost either."

"You wouldn't get lost," the redhead replied.

"Maybe not, but do you want to have to explain the situation to your aunt if I do?"

"Uh...no. Definitely no."

"I didn't think so. Now give me your hand, huh?"

They retreated to the tree line without speaking. Another bird cry rang out as they pushed through the willows at the edge of the clearing, and Robin felt reassuring squeezes be delivered to both of his hands. Despite the sad ache under his ribs, he smiled. Gobblehead might be gone, but at least he didn't have to listen to his cousins' familiar calls by himself.

After a few stumbles and one total crash-and-burn by Kid Flash, they made it blindly back into camp. "What happened to the moon?" Flash frowned at the sky as the fire was stirred back to life. "It wasn't a great one last night, but a little light is better than none."

"There are clouds moving in," Batman answered. "I would expect rain overnight."

"Rain?" Robin, who had retrieved his blanket from the shelter and was sharing it with KF, looked up. "We could collect that, right? It's fresh water. We wouldn't even have to boil it."

"Nice!" the redhead cheered.

"Yes, you can collect the rain water," Batman nodded. "Just uncover the water bag before you go to bed."

"Too bad we don't have more containers," KF wrinkled his nose as he poked at a quickly vanishing scrape on his cheek. "We could collect a _ton_ of water that way."

"What would we do with a ton of water? We can't drink that much," Robin said, watching him. "...That's super awesome, by the way, bro."

"What, this?" he pointed to his minor injury.

"Yeah. It's so weird to watch it just…disappear."

"Eh. It was shallow to begin with. Stupid tree with its stupid face-grinding bark..." He paused. "It's a good thing I fell into it instead of you. You'd have to wait, like, days for it to go away, right?"

"Probably more like a week or two."

"That's crazy! They should make something to fix that."

"…I don't think I want our enemies healing faster."

"Well, no, not _them, _but the good guys should be able to. Why can't that be a thing?" Kid Flash demanded of the adults. "We can make brain serums to block radio waves and chemical baths that make people meta-humans, but we can't come up with something that just lets people heal faster? What's with that?"

Batman and Flash exchanged a look. "...That would be extremely risky without extensive testing," the black-clad man responded eventually.

"Besides, Kid, fast-healing is a side-effect of our sped-up metabolisms," Flash added. "It's not so easy to just rip a side effect out of the whole package. Trust me, if I could figure out a way for us to keep our speed without having to eat ten-to-twenty thousand calories a day, I would. I don't even know what I would do with that much leftover grocery money..." He trailed off, losing himself in a momentary daydream. "Anyway, it's nowhere near as easy as it sounds. Remember, I wasn't trying to give myself powers when I got them. The mixture that made us meta...let's just say I'm lucky it did what it did instead of eating my skin or giving me every cancer under the sun."

"...Yuck."

"Yeah, yuck. So, as much as I'm sure we'd all like for Robin to have fast-healing abilities, I wouldn't hold my breath for it to happen any time soon."

"Laaame. My scrape's, like, gone already," he fingered his cheek, "and your ear's going to be missing that little chunk for...what? Months?"

"I dunno if it will grow back," Robin pondered. "...Batman? Will it?"

"It's a small enough nick that it may heal over to its original shape. It also may not. Fortunately it isn't of a size to be noticeable, as I said before."

"It could be gone forever?!" Kid Flash gaped.

"Yes."

"Dude! Crap, now I feel even more guilty about it..."

"Why? It's barely even a thing. It doesn't even hurt, bro. Don't worry about it."

Flash looked puzzled. "Kid, you act like you don't remember how long it used to take you to heal."

"I guess I do, sort of, but...I dunno, I'm used to everything being fast now. It's hard to think about how long things used to take, other than that they took forever. Don't you have that problem?"

"I never stopped to think about it before, but...I don't think I do."

"You have two-and-a-half times the pre-meta life experience to look back on," Batman put in. "That may be why you remember your old healing speed more accurately than Kid Flash does."

"...Yeah, I guess that could be it." The elder speedster still looked pensive despite his agreement, and it was clear that he would be ruminating on the subject for some time to come. "So!" he clapped his hands together suddenly. "How about those stories, huh? It's getting late."

"Can Rob and I sleep in the same tent-thingy tonight? After stories, I mean? Please?"

Robin perked up. "Yeah, please? You said we'd reconsider things tonight," he directed towards Batman.

"...Yes, I did say that."

From the set of his mouth the boy could tell he was thinking about the turkeys they'd come across and wondering if they would cause nightmares. He bit his lip in anticipation, hoping that he hadn't fouled the deal with his obvious sadness a little while before. It was true that he might have a nightmare – he was half-expecting one, to be honest – but the turkeys wouldn't be the only factor in them if he did. Besides, KF wouldn't need nearly as much cajoling as Batman did when it came to curling up together for comfort, and while the other youth might not be able to make him feel safe he could at least offer a sense of commiseration. "...Please?" he tried, his mouth threatening a pout.

"...Flash? Do you have an opinion on this?"

"My only concern is that you might smother me for snoring. Well, that and the sheer logistics of both of us squeezing into one of those things," he nodded towards the bivys. "But I'm up for the challenge if you are."

Robin knew he'd won. There was no way Batman would back down from a 'challenge' that the other man was willing to take on. Sure enough, the cowl dipped down and back up once.

"Fine. You two can share the shelter that Robin and I have been using. I believe the interior of the other one may be slightly larger, so we'll...squeeze...into that one."

"Yay!"

"Awesome!" KF cheered, offering his fist. "Best camping trip ever."

"...It is," Robin agreed, bumping the other boy's knuckles with his own. It really _had_ been the best camping trip ever, even with the painful memories that it kept dredging up. Now if he could just keep from letting his emotional agony out until they got home, he mused, all would continue to be well...

_I can do it,_ he swore as he settled in against his friend to listen to more of Batman's mythology tales. _Just until tomorrow night. Then, once it's just me and Bruce…then I can let it all out. Then I can cry without making him ashamed of me…_

* * *

**Author's Note: For those of you interested in more info on finding your way with the stars, I've posted a few things on my blog that you might enjoy. Happy reading!**


	21. Chapter 21

"Can I just say how glad I am that we were on the same page a little while ago?"

"...What are you talking about, Flash?" Batman growled at the woven branches in front of his face. It had taken three more stories to get the boys to crawl under their blankets, and another half-hour had passed after that before they'd finally settled down and gone to sleep. Only then had he and the man whose back was mere inches from his own been able to turn their attention to the logistics of fitting themselves into the second bivy. They'd managed the feat without too much awkwardness, and had this been a real emergency where heat sharing was essential the shelter would have been perfect. As things were, though, it was simply uncomfortable.

"The whole fast healing conversation. I was afraid you'd want to...you know...go into details."

His lips pursed in irritation. "I don't consider Lazarus Pits to be an appropriate topic for a ten- and a twelve-year-old." His son had enough nightmare fodder without introducing resurrection and insanity into the mix. "Do you?"

"Nope, and especially not right before bed time. But...well, you have an odd way of determining what Robin should and shouldn't know, so I wasn't sure. I'm just glad we agreed. That would have been one knotty philosophical discussion for around the fire."

"Mm." Knotty, indeed, especially for a boy who had lost his parents and a beloved pet all within little more than a year's time. "Don't mention it again," he warned. "Lack of discussion may suffice to let the question die and stay dead."

"Heh. I get it."

"...That wasn't funny."

Flash sighed. "Yeah, I know. But I had to _try_."

"Try sleeping instead."

"After we brought up the insane undead? Great. I'm really looking forward to that."

"They're not really unde-" He broke off with an annoyed hum. "Never mind. Just go to sleep, or at least shut up and let me do so."

"Okay, okay. G'night, I guess."

Batman didn't answer, too busy dwelling on the future problem of Robin and resurrection. It had never before occurred to him to be worried that the boy might resent him for having knowledge of the restorative potential of the Pits and not using it. Side effects and moral quandaries aside, what orphaned child of good, loving parents wouldn't want to see them brought back to life? _...Bruce,_ he murmured grudgingly.

_You can't seriously think I would ever consider that, with his parents or mine._

_ I know your answer as an adult would always be no. What I'm curious about is whether it would have been different when you were a child. If you had known that such a possibility existed..._

For a moment there was no response. _I like to think it would still have been no, at least if I'd known the costs._

_You sound hesitant. _He paused. _You sound as if you don't believe that would have been your answer._

_Look, when you're a little kid who just wants his parents back...well. I don't know, Batman. I just...don't know. But I do know that I'm not ready for him to hear about the Pits. They're both too young, and-_

_ -And the loss is too recent, in Robin's case._

_ Right._

_ Do you believe he would hold it against us?_ It seemed a distinct possibility, even for such an understanding child as theirs was. _We knew about the Pits, and could technically have accessed them if we chose. We had his parents bodies very soon after-_

_ -but after the Medical Examiner-_

_ -which will be our excuse if does take the news badly someday. Although I don't know that that couldn't have been worked around._

_ ...Let's drop it. This is awful._

_ It's important. _

_ It's disgusting. Besides, the biggest hurdle we would have faced is the one you keep avoiding._

Batman frowned in the darkness of the shelter as Flash began to snore behind him. _...That being?_

_That being us. How could we have, honestly? Even for him, I...I don't know that we would have crossed that bridge. There wouldn't have been any going back, you know._

_ You're saying you don't know that I would have crossed that bridge._

_ I'm saying it would have needed to be a joint decision, and...and that I hope one of us would have been strong enough to say no._

It was more than that, though. _If we had – if he had known, and asked, and we had complied – he wouldn't be with us._

_ No. Unless they were so altered by the experience that he couldn't be returned to them, no, he wouldn't be._

_ Mm. _Somehow that was as unpleasant of a thought as the idea that they would cross such a major ethical boundary as using a Lazarus Pit was. _Is that the real reason you wonder if we would have done it?_

_ ...Maybe. I hope not, I wish not, but I can't deny that his going with them instead of staying with us crossed my mind. _Neither spoke for a minute. ..._Can we stop talking about this now? Because it's threatening to make me sick._

_I noticed._ They might have been of two minds, but they still shared a stomach, and that organ had been giving out stronger and stronger warning signals the longer they went on. _Fine. It was purely hypothetical, anyway._ It did raise the greater question of just how far one or both of them would go for the child sleeping in the next-door tent, but he let the point lie for now. Crawling out of his close quarters to puke would have been miserable on more than one level, and he didn't want to push it.

Despite his upset digestion and the ruckus his bunk mate was filling the air with, he managed to fall into a light sleep before much more of the night had passed. No dreams came, although there was a constant threat that the vague shapes hovering above his unconscious mind would descend to wreak havoc. He held them off for several hours, only jerking awake when Flash gave a mighty snort and kicked out with one foot. ..._Damn restless_ _speedster,_ he cursed silently as he suppressed the urge to launch a return blow.

It had begun to rain, just as he'd suspected it would, and for a while he lay listening as the forest drank in its fill. A distant _crack_ of thunder reached his ears, followed by the low, rustling rumble of it rolling overhead. He dwelt for a moment on the possibility of a wildfire, then pushed the worry away. If one was struck, there was nothing he could do about it; they would cross that bridge if and when they came to it. It seemed unlikely that anything close by would light with as heavy as the downpour was getting, and that would suffice for now.

As minutes ticked by, however, he realized that something was off about the storm's score. It was too human in nature, carrying a whining note that he'd never heard a mere thundercloud make before. He wondered if nights like this one, full of strange noises that would have been inexplicable to men of bygone eras, were what had given rise to the sorts of stories he had been telling the boys earlier. Why not, he decided, when it was managing to rouse discomfort in his own chest despite his knowledge of the science going on around them?

"...Mama..."

The timing of Flash's rambunctious inhalations was such that Batman's ears picked up on that tiny, pitiful whisper. _...Robin,_ his eyes widened under the cowl as he suddenly recognized the source of the storm's more 'human' tones. _Don't. Not like this. There's nowhere dry for me to comfort you..._

He had to try anyway. Even if he couldn't find an easy solution, there was no way he could lay a few feet away and listen to his partner squirm and moan through the rest of the night. Maybe, he grimaced as he slipped carefully into the torrent coming down from the sky, a touch or two would be enough. If he could just reach in and brush a hand across his forehead, neither of the others would be awakened, and the nightmare might flee...

The chance for him to find out vanished as he stepped out onto mud. "...Rob?" he heard Kid Flash's bleary voice come from his destination.

"Mmnnph...mumma..." The younger boy shifted, making his bed crackle.

"Rob. Bro? Hey...wake up."

Batman hesitated. The other child was no longer ignorant of the issue, and more importantly he seemed to be trying to help. As much as he wanted to take the two steps that would plant his boots squarely before the opening of the other bivy, he held himself back, curious where this conversation would go.

"Mumma...wha...mmph..." There was a pause. "...KF?"

"Yeah. Are...are you okay?"

"Um..." The syllable sounded more watery than the rain, and the man standing just out of sight shivered under the pain it carried. "I..."

"Do you want me to get Batman?"

"No!"

His foot had lifted halfway into the air in the space between the question and its fervently voiced answer, and now it hovered. _'No'?_ he repeated, hurt. _...Why not, Robin?_

"Are you sure? You're crying."

"'M sorry...just...not him. Not Flash, either. I...I can't cry now, I'm...I'm okay..."

_No,_ Batman winced, _you're not. I can hear that you're not. _

"Well...why, though? Batman could-"

"It's civ-v-vilian stuff, KF. I can't...I can't right now. It's just...masks. We're in masks."

"Oh. Okay, but...Flash-"

"Will feel like he h-_has_ to tell Batman. 'Cause it's me. No."

"Yeah..." For a moment neither boy spoke. "...Could you tell _me?_ I won't tell, and I don't mind civilian stuff in masks as much as Batman does. I mean, it's all rainy and junk outside, so someone would have to be, like, _right_ _there_ to hear us."

"Um...I don't mind telling _you_," Robin replied, sniffling. "But...look first? Outside, I mean? You could go fast and not get wet, maybe."

"Sure!"

It was sheer luck that Batman was able to crouch down in the blackness between the shelters before Kid Flash steeled himself to stick his head into the rain. A shivery 'brr!' when the boy pulled back told him that he hadn't been seen, and he settled down to listen.

"It's clear. So...what happened that made you cry?"

"It was a...a dream. A really, really bad dream..."

"Oh...I hate those."

"Yeah..."

"Was it...you know, your parents?"

"It...yeah. But not, like...well, you know, the falling dream I told you about?"

"The one that happened for real?"

"Uh-huh."

"So what was it, then?"

"It...it was a lot of stuff, I guess." A sigh that Batman recognized as Robin's sounded. "You remember what I told you about Gobbles, and the Project? The stuff that Br-Batman and Superman told me?"

"Sure. How could I forget?"

"Well, I...I've been having nightmares about Gobbles. Where he's...bad. Not _bad_, but...one of them. One of the Project, but like in charge. Where he tells the other animals what to do, but he doesn't tell them to do nice things."

"Ooooh..."

"Uh-huh. So...so there was that, and...well...it was a plane crash," he blurted. "It was the survival scenario we're doing, only...only I was with my parents instead of you, Flash, and Batman. But we weren't sad the plane crashed. We just did all the sorts of stuff like...well, like we did today and yesterday. We had a big shelter we all slept in, and we made a fire, and ate berries and fish...it was nice. We didn't even care about the plane, we were just happy, because we were all together and okay and in a pretty place. Together," he sniffled. "All together, right here.

"It was really nice for a while. It was nice, and we...we were happy again. We were in the field – you know, where we 'crashed'? – and m-mom and I were laughing because dad...dad was hanging upside down from a tree limb and pretending to be a monkey. He did that sometimes," he said wistfully. "He was good at it. So we were laughing and we...we heard this call...and it was Gobblehead.

"I knew him. I don't know _why_ I knew him, 'cause obviously I wouldn't have my...my parents..._and_ Gobbles, but I did. He called to us, and I got excited. I wanted him to meet them, and for a second it was so great because it was like...like my two families were gonna meet. I dragged mom to him because I wanted that so bad, I wanted them to meet, and...and..." A fresh sob tore from his throat. "I just wanted them to be friends, KF, but he _bit_ her, just like he did to me!"

"Whoa, whaaat? Ah, dude..."

"He _bit_ her, and then...and I was so mad. I yelled at him, but he just looked at me like he didn't even know me. Like he didn't know me at _all_. And I _know _it was Gobbles, KF, cause I'd know Gobbles' gobble anywhere, but...he didn't know me." He coughed. "Then...then I saw _them."_

"Saw who?"

"All the other animals, back in the trees. Turkeys and ducks and horses and...and the bear...our bear, the one we saw today? He was there. He was there, and...he was listening to Gobbles. They all were. They were all listening, and Gobbles told them to...to..."

His voice trailed off, then came back so miserable that Batman nearly punched through the brush-lined wall to get to him. "...They looked just like that night at the show, KF," he warbled. "The animals made them...made them look like when they d-d-d-_died..._I know it was Zucco for real, but in my dream...I know it's dumb, I _know,_ but in my dream...

"...In my dream," he finished in one long moan, "Gobblehead killed my parents."


	22. Chapter 22

A shocked moment of silence followed that announcement. Just as the figure crouching in the rain made to get up and go to his whimpering child, a rustling noise inside stopped him. The little sobs became muffled, and he surmised that Kid Flash had pulled his friend into a hug. "...It's okay, Rob," the older boy's stunned voice reached his ears. "It's...it's okay. It didn't really happen like that."

"I kn-kn-know, but..."

"But you still saw it."

"Yeeeeeah..."

For several minutes the only sounds were sniffles and reassurances. Then Robin spoke again. "...Sorry I cried all over you," he hiccupped.

"It's okay. You needed to cry." Batman could practically hear the redhead shrug. "I don't mind."

"You don't...you don't think it was kind of...well...babyish?"

"Uh, _no_. You had a nightmare about a lot of really crappy stuff. That's not your fault, and who could blame you for crying over it? Not me. I mean...I get upset over bad dreams too, you know?"

"But you don't let it break through your mask."

"I've never had a nightmare in my mask. But that one you had...I'd have cried over it, if I was you. I think I would have, at least. That...that was a really awful thing to imagine, Rob. It would have been weird if you hadn't cried."

"...Oh. So...I didn't freak you out or anything? We're...we're still bros?"

"Dude...you're my best friend, okay? And not just because you're my only friend, either. It's more than that. So...cry when you need to cry. That's what bros are for."

"...You're awesome, KF."

"Nah. I just care about you. Anyway, though, what do you think brought it...brought it on? The nightmare?"

"Gosh...a lot of things, I guess."

"Like the turkeys?"

"Yeah. I think that was part of it, at least."

"The final straw?"

"The final straw."

"So...do you want to talk about the other straws? You don't have to or anything, I just thought maybe it would help. Sometimes talking stuff out helps. That's what Unc-...Flash and I do."

"Me and Batman, too." He sighed. "It's just...just a lot of stuff that's happened lately. Gobbles...I've been having tons of bad dreams about him. I know he wasn't a bad turkey, and I know he didn't do the things I see him doing, like destroying the world and...and killing my parents...but I still dream about him being awful to people. I hate it, because I love him, but...maybe I should go visit him when I get home. Maybe that will help."

Outside, Batman frowned. The boy hadn't been out to see the bird's grave since he'd been buried, he realized in hindsight. It could have been a simple case of his not wanting to open up a fresh wound again, but if that was the situation then he was grieving for the turkey very differently than he had for his parents. The other option was that he knew that the location held bad memories for Bruce, even with the cave now collapsed in on itself, and had avoided it to keep from worrying him.

_I told him we could visit whenever he wanted_, the billionaire murmured. His tone was raw with pain from listening to the boys' conversation but not being able to do anything about it, and Batman felt a twinge of regret. Had this been a civilian camping trip he had no doubt that Bruce would have rushed in and rescued Dick at the first recognizable moan; instead his alter had held back and let him keep control out of respect for the fact that the cowl was on. He appreciated it, but kept the emotion to himself.

_Something has kept him from going out to the site. You'll need to rectify that once we're home_, he advised.

_I know. I will._ Bruce paused. _He's talking about his mother_.

Batman broke away from his internal conversation and returned to straining his ears against the rain. Things had occurred under his watch this weekend that had upset his son, he knew, and if any of them had been part of his nightmare he wanted to know.

"...She always wanted to come here. Mom did, I mean."

"What, camping?"

"No. Well, yes, but...she always wanted to come to the Rockies. She'd never seen mountains, real mountains, before we went to Europe, but she'd always wanted to. She really wanted to see _these_ mountains, especially. She liked mountains so much that she made it her minor when she was in college." His voice carried a hint of surprise. "...I'd forgotten about that. I just remembered how she always...she always laughed at herself for picking such a weird combo. French and geology..."

"That _is_ kind of weird."

"Yeah." A beat passed, and Batman didn't have to close his eyes to imagine how his partner would look right now if Kid Flash didn't have him pulled in close enough. He had a tendency to ball up with his knees pulled to his chest and his arms wrapped around them, hedgehogged as if to protect his soft underbelly. It rather undermined the purpose of the position when one assumed it only to then spill all their fears and hurts, but he had no intention of lecturing the boy about it.

"Anyway," Robin picked up again, "we used to talk about coming here together. About...about camping by a creek, and catching our own fish, and maybe…maybe even seeing a bear. A lot of the stuff that's happened this weekend is stuff that I talked about with her, and...and it's felt so strange to do it and realize that she's not here to do it, too. It's like a dream come true, only with something…something _missing_."

"Aw, don't cry again, bro," KF begged helplessly as fresh sob sounded. "I'm sorry..."

"S'not your fault..."

"I know, but I still hate it. If what's-his-face jerk-butt was still alive, I'd totally want to beat the crap out of him right now. Just so you know."

A little snort of amusement broke through the younger child's tears. "'What's-his-face jerk-butt'? You mean Zucco?"

Batman flinched. To talk about a deceased parent wanting to come to the Rockies was vague enough that a listener who didn't already have a good clue who they were under their masks wouldn't get much from it. To mention Tony Zucco's name, though... _Watch your language, Robin_, he warned silently. Just because there was no one listening right now didn't mean that he should get into the habit of being so loose with information.

"Yeah. That asshole. Don't tell Flash I said that, he'll warn me about my mythological aunt's wrath."

"Are you _trying_ to make me laugh?"

"...Maybe? I don't know. I guess I just don't want you to be sad that we went on this trip together."

"Huh? Oh...I'm not, KF, honest."

"But...you remembered all that stuff about your mom, and you had that nightmare, all because of this trip."

"It's still been a great trip, though! I love hanging out with you, and Flash, and Batman. We've learned so many neat things! Yeah, some of it has...you know, hurt...but..."

"But what?"

"Don't take this the wrong way or anything, but _lots_ of things hurt me. Lots of things remind me of them, all the time. It's just how things are, and...I kinda don't mind. I'm afraid that if things stop hurting at all when I think of them that...that that will sort of be like forgetting them. I still have tons of fun, KF, I really, really do, and this weekend has been awesome, but...a lot of things just hurt. So if I look sad sometimes when we're together, it's probably not your fault at all. Okay?"

"...Oh my _god_, dude, that's terrible!"

"I know, but...it's how it goes. I'm sorry if I freaked you out with that."

"You didn't, but...you sort of did. Um...question?"

"Hmm?"

"Well...is that what's wrong with Batman, too? Not that there's anything wrong with feeling sad," Kid Flash corrected himself quickly, "but...is it?"

"…I think it might be? I don't know that, but...maybe. But don't tell him I said so."

"I won't. But gosh..." He trailed off. "...Rob?"

"Uh-huh?"

"I'm really glad that you handle all of that stuff the way you do instead of the way Batman does."

"What do you mean?"

"It's just...well, Flash says it's tough trying to be friends with a brick wall sometimes."

"Oh...well..."

Batman grimaced. _Damn it, Flash, Robin shouldn't have to answer for how I am_, he railed silently. He was confident that the comment was a purely organic one and had come about without any prompting from the elder speedster, but it still rankled. _They're children. Aren't their bad dreams enough without them having to worry about trying to analyze our characters? _

_Says the man who assigns Robin homework to analyze the characters of others_, Bruce nudged him.

_...That's different_.

_How? You've literally had him break down the basics of Barry's personality and write an essay on what likely would and would not be effective methods of psychological assault against him in particular._

_ Yes, but you'll notice I've never told him to analyze __me__ in that way._

_ No, you haven't. There'd be no point; he already knows __exactly__ how to get to us, and he demonstrates that knowledge regularly. A test would be redundant._

_ ...Shit._ He wasn't wrong. _Fine. You may have a point. But I would still prefer that they not discuss my...'brick wall'...character._

_ Afraid they might figure out a better way to chip away at it?_

_More like concerned that we're missing important information by talking amongst ourselves instead of listening,_ he ducked the question. It was a cop-out, and they both knew it, but Bruce fell silent. It proved to be unnecessary, however; whatever Robin had said in answer to his friend's inquiry must have been sufficient, because the conversation had returned to the dream.

"I guess it was just a snowball effect, KF. Where we are, and the turkeys, and all of the other, smaller things…they all just bundled together and jumped me at the same time."

"Jerk memories."

"…Yeah. Jerk memories. Jerk brain."

Kid Flash laughed. "Jerk brain sounds like something you'd call a bully who actually wasn't that stupid."

"Heh. Yeah, it does."

"…Do you feel any better after we talked and stuff? Cause I don't want you to feel bad, Rob."

"I _do_ feel better," Robin admitted. "I really do." He sighed. "I'm glad you were the one here tonight. I…I know Batman knows I've been sad a few times on this trip, and he said we'd talk about it when we got home, but…I needed to talk about it _now. _I couldn't have told him all the stuff I told you, not while we're in masks."

"I don't get that. I mean, what, are you just supposed to…to hold it all in, like he does?"

_I told you to tell me if you needed to talk before we got home,_ Batman thought vehemently. He shook his head, trying to banish the pained heat growing behind his eyes. _You could have come to me, Robin. Why didn't you come to me?_

"Well…yeah. He did tell me that we could talk about stuff this weekend, since it's such a long time in masks, I guess, but…he never talks about civilian stuff when he's in costume, not unless I bring it up. And when I _do_ bring it up, he always seems kind of uncomfortable. I just…I didn't want to make him uncomfortable again, that's all, especially when we're training. I wanted him to be proud, not…not disappointed that I couldn't keep it inside until we got home. That's why I didn't want you to get him earlier, is because I didn't want him to know I was crying. I don't want him to think that I can't handle it…"

"…I won't tell him, Rob, honest. And you can cry any time you want to with me. I don't care if you're in your mask or not."

"You really don't?"

"Dude, I _know_ you can handle things. You've been kicking my butt this weekend at surviving, and you've had way more going on in your head than I did in mine, so…yeah. You're freaking tough, bro, but that doesn't mean you have to be a-" he broke off.

"…A brick wall?"

"Yeah."

"I don't think I want to be a brick wall. Nobody ever wants to hug them, and that's just sad." A beat passed. "…KF?"

"Uh-huuuuuh?" was yawned back.

"D'you remember after I got hurt by Sawbones' guys, and we fell asleep together in the hospital room at the Mountain?"

"Yeah. That night sucked, of course I remember it. Why, do you want to sleep like that again?"

"…Could we? Please?"

"Totally. You might have been the one who had the nightmare, but after hearing all that stuff about it I think _I _need a hug."

"Oh, good. Reciprocal hugs are the best kind."

Neither spoke after that, and in a few minutes even the faint rustles of their settling back down for the rest of the night had ceased. Batman heard little of it. _He didn't want me to think he couldn't handle it,_ he repeated over and over again. _He didn't come to me because he didn't want to…to __disappoint__ me. Jesus, Robin…denying yourself comfort because you're afraid I'll think you're weak for needing it? _It was a tactic that was much too close to his own coping method to be acceptable in his bright young partner. _No. You won't go down that path,_ he swore. _Not on my watch, at least. _

They would talk on the flight home tomorrow, whether the boy wanted to or not. He would nip this thing in the bud now, before it evolved into a habit. Until then, however, there was nothing he could do. The children had fallen asleep again, and he had no desire to interrupt their hopefully dream-free slumber. If the nightmare came back, though, he would act. Kid Flash had proven himself a useful companion tonight, but next time Batman wouldn't wait around to see if his friendly ear would be a sufficient balm for Robin's wounded soul.

With that determination pounding in his veins, he hunkered down in the ever-heavier rain and prepared to wait out the darkness.


	23. Chapter 23

**Author's Note: My apologies for the gap yesterday. I got a nasty sunburn on Saturday that made my arms difficult to use for pretty much anything, typing included. It's better now, though, so hopefully there won't be any more interruptions. Happy reading!**

* * *

The rain ceased shortly before daybreak, but its gray parent clouds lingered, hovering low in the sky even after they had nothing more to give. Before the sun could rise enough to burn them away, Robin awoke and stared out at the damp forest. He had slept soundly after his talk with KF, but a sense of uncertainty remained in the pit of his stomach. He was going to have to have a similar discussion with Bruce, he knew; they would drag out all of the little reminders that he had glossed over with Kid Flash, and everything would hurt again. All he could hope was that he'd be able to keep what had happened last night a secret.

Still, that was many hours off. The best thing to do right now, he decided, was to get up and treat the day as if it hadn't been darkened from the outset by his terrible nightmare. If he got up soon he might have a few minutes to himself in which to try and prepare for the new onslaughts of memory that were sure to keep coming so long as they stayed here. Glancing at his friend to make sure that he didn't wake, Robin slithered out from the warm blankets they'd shared and stepped into the cool air outside. Remaining stooped, he shuffled over and peeked into the neighboring bivy, then froze. _...Where's Batman?!_

His answer came as soon as he straightened and checked the rest of the clearing. He almost looked past the black lump bundled up in the valley between the shelters, catching the anomaly just before his eyes went too far. How long, he wondered with dread, had the man been sitting there?

"Um...Batman?" he whispered once he'd drawn up to him. There was no reply. _Still asleep_, he judged, and crouched beside him. A few drops of water glistened on the motionless cowl as he reached out and touched his elbow. "...Batman?"

Gauntleted fingers wrapped around his wrist and twisted him into a tight hold before he could react. Sensing that it was best not to fight, he tried to relax his muscles. "Batman? It's...it's me," he said softly.

The grip on his arm loosened, and a second later he found himself being turned back around. Heavy hands stayed on his shoulders once he was facing his mentor again. "...Did I hurt you?" the man asked.

"No. It was my fault, anyway; I should have known to let a sleeping Batman lie," he gave a weak grin. "But...um..." He had to look away from the empty white lenses that were burning a hole in his soul. There was no way he could avoid asking why he had slept in the rain instead of in his tent, but he feared the answer. "You..." _Crap._

"You want to know why I was out here instead of inside."

It was a statement, not a question, and it made him sigh in defeat. "Well, yeah."

A beat passed. "...Do you know why I put you in a lock just now, Robin?"

"Huh?" He frowned, confused. "Because I surprised you, I guess. You probably figured you'd be the first person up. Right?"

"That's part of it, yes. But the greater factor in my reaction was what I was seeing in the moments before you woke me."

Raising his face, Robin met his mentor's blank stare. "You...you had a nightmare?" he whispered.

"Yes, Robin. I had a nightmare, too."

_'Too'..._ That single word confirmed all of the boy's suspicions as to why Batman was sleeping with one ear all but pressed against the side of his shelter. His shoulders slumped. "...Bet yours wasn't civilian stuff, though."

"No. You're right. Mine was much less terrifying than yours was."

"I didn't mean...!" Gulping, he returned his eyes to the ground. "You heard all of it, didn't you? Last night?"

"Yes. I did."

Shame flooded him. "...I'm sorry. I...I tried not to let it out, honest, I tried _so hard-_"

He was pulled close before he could break down. The surprise of being embraced while they were in costume overrode part of his embarrassment, and for a moment he just let himself enjoy the feeling. For all that Batman hugs were made cold and impersonal by the armor they came wrapped in, he could feel the sentiment behind the gesture. "You're...you're not mad at me?" he breathed against the man's neck.

"_No,_ Robin. You have nothing to be ashamed of."

The arm around him withdrew, and he settled back to a more professional distance with reluctance. All he wanted to do was stay wrapped up in that safe cocoon, but not even the reassurance he'd just received was enough to fully banish his fear of appearing to be too weak for his mask, so he didn't ask to be tugged back in. "But you always say that...that we can't let those things through..."

"I know I do, and I mean it. It's a good rule to follow, usually. But that doesn't mean that there aren't times when it has to be bent, or even broken." He paused. "When the pain is that bad, Robin...when it's that bad, don't keep it inside. If it's safe for you to do so, as it was last night, then let it out. Let it out with someone you trust."

"But-!" he objected. A finger landed on his lips, cutting him off.

"Stop. I know what you're thinking. You're thinking it's a sign of weakness. But it's not."

"But _you_ don't do it!"

"...No. I do not. But that may be a weakness on my part." A hard grimace appeared under the cowl's edge. "As little as I like to admit to – maybe – having weaknesses, I...do," was forced out. "It's important that you recognize them as such and make an effort _not_ to imitate them. Do you understand?"

Robin was too stunned to answer. "Batman," he managed finally, "I-"

A massive yawn from inside one of the bivys interrupted him. His mentor seemed to give a silent sigh, then shook his head. "Later," he ordered. "Unless it can't wait. If that is the case, don't hold it in unnecessarily. Don't make it give you bad dreams when we could find a safe place to talk together. Understand?"

"Yes, Batman," he agreed. A second mewl of awakening sounded from the other side, signaling that they had little time left before one speedster or the other tuned in. "But you're really not-?"

The finger was back across his mouth suddenly, and an instant after that the weird texture of the Kevlar-woven rubber cowl was pressed against his forehead. "I am neither shamed by nor disappointed in your possession of a much greater heart than my own, Robin," the man murmured. "Far from it." With that he pushed him gently back. "We'll talk later."

"...Okay," he nodded. Batman stood stiffly and sneaked out through the gap at the rear of the tents, circling around so that it would appear that he had come from the forest. Robin watched him go, then followed. _He's not mad at me, _he marveled._ I'm not weak for needing to talk. He's not...he's not ashamed of me. _Skipping up beside him as he halted by the sodden fire ring, the boy tilted his head back, caught his glance, and smiled. "I'm not ashamed of you, either, Batman," he whispered. "It's not your fault you don't like to share; it's just who you are."

The black-clad figure crouched, picked up a stick, and began to stir the hopelessly wet ash as if he was searching for some miraculous coal. "...Thank you, Robin," he replied once he was down at his level. "Now...hush."

"Until later?"

"Until later."

"Okay. I can do that." He felt like he really could, now.

* * *

"Today's all mopey," Kid Flash complained a few minutes later. Both speedsters had finally crawled out of their beds, albeit with a great deal of moaning about the weather, and were huddled around the cold fire pit. "We should start a fire, have some breakfast, and go back to bed."

"I second that motion," Flash yawned.

It didn't sound like a half-bad plan to Robin, who had squished up against KF in an attempt to share body heat. If they split back into their original sleeping pairs for a nap – and Batman was sure to insist on that, he was certain – then they might get to have their talk that much sooner. He could wait until the plane ride home if he had to, but there was something incredibly alluring about the prospect of spilling his secrets to the person he trusted above all others in the world and then falling asleep beside him on a thick, dry bed of boughs.

Before he could say as much, however, Batman spoke. "You won't have time."

"...Huh?" KF wrinkled his nose.

"We're _seriously_ going ahead with that?" Flash's eyebrows shot up. "Everything's soaking wet out there, you know."

"If this was real, their adversaries wouldn't hesitate on account of the rain. Besides, it's beginning to clear up." He was right; the sky had lightened considerably in the last quarter hour, and faint patches of blue were widening between the foggy clouds. "We'll go ahead as planned."

"Um...go ahead with _what_?" Robin asked, intrigued. "Are we fighting someone? You said there were adversaries."

"I did. But you aren't fighting anyone. Instead, you'll be practicing your evasion skills."

"Eaaaaaasy," KF smirked.

"Not so easy," Flash corrected him. "You haven't heard the rules yet."

"What _rules_? How can there be rules to evasion? You just run away!"

"That isn't an option in this scenario," Batman stated flatly.

"Whaaat?!" The redhead looked affronted. "Why not?"

"Several reasons. First, your only hope of rescue continues to be waiting for one of your allies to arrive to pick you up. If you wander too far from the crash site, they'll never find you, and you may never find your way out. Second, you were surprised while you were sleeping; as a result, you were forced to leave several important items behind. You have no water, no food, and no fire at this point. You also no longer have Robin's cape – or my own, for that matter – to help you procure and preserve those things. Your odds of surviving for long in the wild without those things are slim. Third," it was his turn to grin wickedly, "those are the rules for this training session. If you break them, you fail."

"So how far can we go, then?" Robin asked.  
"Within a one-mile radius of camp."

"How're you gonna know if we go further?" KF challenged.

"We both have tracking devices in our clothes, bro," he nudged him. "That's how."

"...Wait, _I _do?!"

"Kid, you know you do," Flash frowned. "I told you about it when I had your aunt sew them in."

"...Oh. Yeah, I think I _do_ remember that now. Oops."

"Can the bad guys track us?" Robin pushed forward. His mind was already flying, mapping out routes and trying to remember good hiding places they'd passed. The latter would be useless if the people who were supposed to be looking for them could find them on a screen, he knew, and he held his breath as he waited for an answer.

"No. Your beacons are only readable with highly encrypted scanners, which they would not have access to," Batman answered.

"So how do we win?"

"You win by staying free until noon."

"Noon?!" KF groaned. "That's, like, a billion hours from now! And we don't even get to _eat_?!"

"Hold on." Robin chewed at his lip, thinking. "...You and Flash are going to be the 'bad guys,' right?" he queried, drawing air quotes with his fingers.

"Yes. Why?"

"So...if we take both of you out, could we be done early?"

Surprise was writ large on Flash's face as the adults shared a look. The emotion was repressed in what was visible of Batman's expression, but Robin sensed that he'd scored some points with his idea. "What would you do with prisoners if this was a real-life situation?" the cowled figure inquired.

"Well...they had to have gotten here somehow, right? I'm guessing they flew in on a helicopter, because if our plane went over a cliff that means there's nowhere for them to land something bigger. I doubt they drove in, because that would take forever and be a really bad way to find a hidden camp. It'd be _way_ smarter to look for the wreck from above and go from there." He paused, trying to calculate what sort of rebuttal his mentor might pose to that assumption. "I guess they could have parachuted in, but it would be kind of dumb to do that and then have to call for a pick-up once they caught us. Plus, bad guys tend to be cocky, so they probably figure they'll get us right away and be home free. We're just a couple of kids, after all," he grinned.

"What's your point?"

"If they brought some sort of transportation, we could take it and get ourselves out of here. We'd just tie them all up, leave them, and tell the authorities once we found a town. If they came in something we didn't know how to operate, like a helicopter, we could take one of them with us to tell us how to do it. The odds are pretty good that they wouldn't let us crash if they were on board, and even if we _did_ crash, well..." He shrugged. "We've already survived one plane accident, right?"

"...That's a very risky proposal you've put forward."

"Don't listen to him, Robin," Flash laughed. "He's just acting all put out because what you said is exactly what _he_ would do in this situation. Beat up the stalkers, steal their helo, and fly himself home. Right, Batman?"

"You aren't helping, Flash," was ground out.

"But I'm right."

"That isn't the point. What _is_ the point," he turned back to the boys, "is that your plan hinges on one very important first step." He drew himself up. "You have to defeat _both_ of us to get to that hypothetical helicopter."

Robin could feel KF's gaze on the side of his head, and he knew that the other youth was looking to him to determine whether or not they could tackle their guardians. It was a tall order, to be sure, but they had to do _something_. "Well," he said vaguely, not wanting to tip his hand in front of the adults, "I guess you'll just have to wait and see if we decide it's worth the risk."

"Keep in mind what would happen if real enemies captured you."

"We know what would happen."

Batman stared at him for a minute, and Robin knew he was trying to decide which way he was going to go in the end. "...Fine. You have a five minute head start," he told them. "Which begins...now."

"C'mon, KF," he stood, keeping his face unconcerned. "Let's take a walk."

"A _walk_?!" the other boy squawked. "Shouldn't we _run_?"

"Trust me. We've got five minutes, remember? Time to talk in private."

"...Oh. Okay." Looking nervous, Kid Flash went ahead of him towards the trees.

Just before he passed into the brush and out of sight, Robin turned back to find his mentor still watching him. "...See you later," he waved mischievously. _But sooner than you think, Batman,_ he giggled to himself as he melted into the forest. _Sooner than you think._


	24. Chapter 24

"...Can you run quietly?" he asked KF once they were out of earshot.

"Um...I can try?"

"Okay. If I hop up on your back, could you make a big loop around camp and get us to the beaver pond without leaving too obvious of a trail?"

"Sure, but...Rob, are you sure this is a good idea?"

He glanced at his friend. "What, trying to take them out, you mean?"

"Well...yeah. I mean, Flash is a million times faster than me, and Batman...don't you think he's going to know where we went? We've only been to a few places around here."

"Maybe he will. But we've still got four minutes in our head start, and we're not going to be there long."

"Uh...okay. Climb on, I guess."

Robin ducked his head as they flew through the forest. If they could just get to the little lake with enough time left to spare for him to explain everything to Kid Flash, they would have a chance of winning. _We __have __to win,_ he narrowed his eyes behind his mask as the trees flew by. For them to survive the hunt would be a good enough result for Batman, he knew, but if they succeeded in turning the game around on their mentors...that might just be enough to make the man acknowledge that he was more ready for the likes of Scarecrow and Poison Ivy than he'd been given credit for.

"Did you do some zig-zags and stuff as we went?" he inquired when he climbed down a few seconds later. "You know, to throw them off if they actually track us?" It would be more fair if their pursuers couldn't use super speed or special gadgets – after all, what were the odds of real baddies having skills identical to those of Flash and Batman? – but he wasn't sure they would see it that way. They were better off safe than sorry, and an unclear trail made for a good obstacle.

"Uh-huh. But...bro...um...crap." KF trailed off, scuffing his feet.

"...You don't want to do this, do you?" he realized suddenly. His mood deflated immediately. "You'd...you'd rather just try and hide until noon? Why?"

"I just don't see how we can win. It's really risky going up against _them_, you know? They're not Sawbones' dumb mind-controlled guards, they're...they're freaking Batman and Flash!" The redhead's hands flailed as he tried to relay the futility he perceived in the path Robin wanted to take. "How could they _not_ catch us?!"

"Because _they_ trained us, KF! We know all of their secrets, right?"

"...Well, yeah. Most of them, anyway. But they know all of our stuff, too!"

"Maybe. And maybe they've forgotten a few things. Not about us, but about being kids. And that's our secret," he insisted. "We're not going to get them by acting like adults and jumping out of the brush to get into a fistfight with them; we're going to get them by being sneaky, annoying brats. Mud traps, crazy antics, all of that stuff we'd get in trouble for doing in the civilian world. _That's_ how we're going to do this."

"...You know we have to go home with them, right?"

"Sneaky and annoying is just what real bad guys would call us," he waved the reminder away. "But _they'll_ be proud that we used everything we have, including our devious, childish little minds. Besides...it's not very realistic, is it? What Batman wanted us to do?"

"What do you mean?"

"If this was a real-life ambush, the people chasing us wouldn't just give up at noon and invite us back to camp for lunch. They'd keep coming until we were half dead from exhaustion and couldn't run from them any more. Even if I climbed on your shoulders and we just took off, we wouldn't know where we going. All the baddies would have to do would be get lucky and spot us from the sky, or have one of us fall down and get hurt, or a hundred other things. If we tried to run away like Batman told us, _they'd_ be in control of the situation, and that's bad."

He paused, sensing from his cohort's expression that he was making headway but hadn't quite pushed the right combination of buttons yet. "...You know how Batman hates, hates, _hates_ the Joker?"

"Yeah. Everyone knows that."

"Okay, but do you know _why_ he hates him?" As soon as he'd asked the question, he regretted it. Giving the answer was going to feel like he was spilling one of Batman's secrets. Still, though...KF was an ally, and a trustworthy one at that. Plus, the logic behind an orderly, meticulous man disliking a chaotic one wasn't especially complicated; there was no reason that his friend couldn't have figured it out on his own if he was given more time than they had to spare now.

"He hates him because he can't predict him very well," he shared after a few seconds of indecision. "No one can. Who would have thought that creep would sneak into a grocery store bathroom after his breakout a few months ago?" His hand rose unbidden to rub at the spot where the Joker's box cutter had pricked his neck many weeks earlier. "Not me. Not Superman. Not," he said forcefully, "even Batman. _That's _what he hates about him, bro; it's impossible to control the situation when he's involved, or almost impossible. It's really hard, at least. And they're city guys, right? This isn't their element, even if Batman _has _been teaching us how to survive out here. Forests and kids...that's a lot of unpredictability, don't you think?"

A strange smirk had sneaked onto Kid Flash's face while he'd been talking, and when Robin saw it his own grin expanded. "...Well? Are you in?"

"How much time do we have left?" the older boy queried.

"About two minutes."

"...Okay. Tell me the plan." He took a deep breath. "...I'm in."

"Best bro ever." _We're gonna win this, _he crowed. _Together, we can do anything._

* * *

Their strategy played on their individual strengths, Robin explained as they stood waist-deep in the water opposite their old fishing spot and coated each others' bright clothing in mud and grass. They would need to focus on their respective mentors in order to best utilize what they knew about them from months of being their partners. There was no guarantee that the adults would stick to that formula, though, he warned; in fact, he wouldn't put it past them to switch kids to chase, especially if they _did_ decide to act like regular goons. They had no way of knowing that for certain at the offset, though, so his own tactics would rely on stealth and cunning while Kid Flash focused on speed and bewilderment.

"He's way faster than me, though, Rob!" a protest rose.

"That's okay! That's okay. The idea isn't that you run _from_ him, it's that you run _around_ him. Even if he's allowed to use speed, he's not going to start at one side of the circle we're allowed to hide in and cover every square inch, right?"

"...Probably not."

"Okay, good. Even if he did, if he wants to do anything but hope to crash into you he's going to have to take his time. Remember how you couldn't run full speed away from the bear?"

"Yeah. I had to go slow. And you _still_ got hurt." Reminded of its existence, KF frowned at the bandage over Robin's ear. "...D'you want me to cover that up for you? It's really obvious."

"No, we'll need it in a minute. Anyway, Flash's got to go slow. Slower than you, in fact, because you're shorter than he is. There'll be fewer branches at eye level, you know? So just stay low, go fast, and leave all the signs of passage you can. Cross over yourself, spin in circles, smack muddy hand prints onto random trees...even if he's not tracking you, you're going to confuse the heck out of him. And if he _does_ see you and try to chase you, just keep running into closer-growing trees and keep dodging left and right over your own trails. He'll never catch you like that, I don't think, not so long as you stay out of the wide-open areas."

"So if that's how I keep him off of my tail, how do I catch him? Isn't that the point?"

"That's where this comes in." Gripping the solitary corner of the gauze that hadn't been strapped down like a sanitarium patient, he ripped it away from his head. "...Oooooowwuh."

"Dude. Ouch."

"Yeah, but it's worth it." Unfolding the layers, he divided the material into quarters. Next he crossed two pieces over each other, holding the others in his mouth, and bent down to scoop up a fistful of thick lake sludge. "...Hold out your hands." Using KF's palms as a table, he made a wet, squishy sphere of fabric and goop, layering one over the other until he'd created an ugly baseball-sized mass. "That's yours. Now I'll make mine..."

"...How much time do we have left?"

"None, I think."

"So they could be coming?" There was a note of worry in the speedster's voice, but Robin heard a trace of determination beneath it that steeled his own drive.

"Yeah. Here," he straightened with his own makeshift projectile in his hands. "Let me on again."

"...Are you up?"

"Yeah. Run for just inside the trees." They were there almost before he finished speaking. "...'Kay. Now pull some of these leaves and wrap them around the mud. It'll help keep it moist so it really _splats_ when you hit Flash with it."

"...Wait, _this_ is how we're getting them? With...with mud balls?"

"Yup. Kid stuff, KF, that's the key. They won't be expecting us to throw globs of dirt at them, right? We don't want to actually hurt them, but it's easy to make the case that if we can hit them in, say, the knee or the head – someplace incapacitating – with these then we could do it just as well with a rock or a batarang. Plus, this way they have to go home muddy and explain why to their respective you-know-whos." He could picture Alfred's face already. While he felt a bit bad for the butler who was going to be stuck cleaning all of their gear, his expression was going to be priceless.

Kid Flash froze in the act of applying a final leaf to his stack of mud and blinked at him. "...Dude, you're a flipping genius at this stuff."

"Nah," Robin felt an impish smirk curve his lips upward. "I'm just a kid, remember?"

"Heh. Yeah, right."

"You ready to split up?"

"Um...I think so. But Rob?"

"Huh?" He turned back from where he'd been about to ghost away into the trees. "What's up?"

"If...if I get caught and you don't...don't be mad, okay?"

"Bro..." They didn't have time for this, but he couldn't leave his friend feeling less than confident. If they were going to do this they had to be bold and self-assured; anything less would only result in them losing the game. "You're gonna kick his butt. We can _do_ this. You get Flash, I'll get Batman, and we'll be having breakfast before we know it. And if something _does_ go wrong, I won't be mad. I promise. I'll just try to rescue you." They hadn't discussed whether or not rescue was a possibility, but he would take that chance if it came down to it. "Okay?"

"...Okay. And I know you're not going to need it, but if something goes wrong for you, I'll try to come get you, too."

"Awesome," Robin nodded, genuinely relieved. As little as he liked to think it, he knew there was a decent chance that he would be the one who was taken out before he could strike his blow. Batman hadn't been kidding around in the moments just before they'd left camp; he was going to hunt hard this morning. That made their task dozens of times more difficult than it would have been had they been being chased by common criminals, drug lords, or even one of the nastier supervillains whose files he'd finally been given access to. Their pursuer, after all, was the man who plagued such baddies' sleep. "See you soon, bro. Go crazy out there."

"I will. Good luck."

"Thanks." In the space of a breath, KF was gone. Robin stared at where he'd been standing for a second, then sighed. _I think I'm going to need luck today. But we can do this. _His mouth firmed, and he gripped his weapon as tightly as he could without risking his fingers going into it. _We're going to win this. I know it. _Turning, he began to work his way silently through the forest. _Here I come, Batman..._


	25. Chapter 25

"...They're not _really_ going to try and take us out, are they?" Flash inquired once the boys had had a minute to clear off. "I mean...I know it's exactly what _you_ would do, and frankly I'm starting to regret telling Robin that, but...they wouldn't, right?"

There was a worried tone underlining the speedster's words that matched the vague uncertainty bubbling in Batman's stomach. "I...don't know," he admitted, staring at the patch of greenery his son had vanished into. _He's not the sort to run and hide when there are foes loose for the taking,_ he mused. _I may not have thought this through far enough..._

_You didn't,_ Bruce piped up. _Didn't you hear him towards the end? He was using his clever voice. _

_I know,_ he replied, irritated. _Don't point out things I already know. It's a waste of time._

_Would you consider it a waste of time for me to remind you that we almost __never__win when he uses that voice?_

_...No. I would consider it a statement of fact. _That was the problem; Dick truly did have an impressive record of success in moments when he was as confident as his departing attitude had implied he was. At the same time, though, he wasn't a half-bad actor, and might well have been putting on a show to make them think that he felt clever when he didn't. Dissimulation would be a smart tactic; if they proceeded with extra caution under the assumption that they were being targeted, it would give the boys a leg up on lasting until noon. Still, though... He paused, his mouth twisting into a frown, and decided that that felt like too great of a leap in reasoning for even an extremely intelligent child.

_I don't know,_ Bruce said cautiously. _If any ten-year-old is introspective enough to realize that he puts on a tell-tale air when he gets confident, it's kiddo._

_I'm not arguing that. I'm not even arguing that he's bright enough to weaponize his emotions. My hesitation stems from the fact that most __adults__never figure out what you're suggesting. And considering the distinct lack of self-confidence he's evinced this weekend..._ A low hum passed through his pursed lips. _I think it was a legitimate 'clever voice.'_

_So he's going to hunt us?_

_...Yes. Yes, I think they will._ "...Flash."

"What's the plan?" came back immediately. "I assume that's what you were thinking about, at least."

"It was," he lied smoothly. It almost seemed wrong to tell the other man an untruth given all that they had shared over the last six-odd months, but he pushed the feeling down. Even if he dared to try and explain the conversation he'd just been having, the odds were high that it would only lead to confusion. "I think there's a good chance that the boys will attempt to come after us in the way that Robin suggested."

"Shhhhit. Don't get me wrong," Flash raised his hands as the cowl swiveled to face him, "it's a great training opportunity either way, but...I'm a little worried about what they're going to come up with."

_Me, too,_ he kept to himself. "They have two paths to success now; we still have only one, and that is to find them and catch them. Obviously I would have a difficult time snaring Kid Flash without putting him at high risk of injury, which I would prefer not to do, so I think it's best if we stick to our own partners for this exercise."

"You take Robin, I'll take Kid."

"Correct."

"Are we splitting up for this?"

"Yes. They probably will, so our best chance of getting them both is to work separately."

"If I see Robin before I see Kid, do you want me to grab him?"

"...Yes," he answered after a moment's thought. "But try to do it without super speed, if you can. The chances of a real assailant in a situation like this one having that power is slim, and I think he'd protest."

"Not much super speed to be had in these woods anyway. I think the fastest I've been able to go with all of these trees has been, like, forty." Flash sighed. "Wide-open spaces, Batman. That's my request for our next camping trip. Some wide-open spaces."

"Mm." The suggestion meshed with what had already half-gelled in his mind for their next foray into the wild, so he said nothing more.

"...Hey, Batman?"

"Mm?"

"Is it bad that I'm not entirely sure we're going to win this?"

"...I think," he smirked, "the fact that you're worried when our opponents are ten and twelve years of age should just make us proud."

"Heh. Yeah...you have a point there. Alright, so were are you starting? I'll take the other end and work my way towards you."

"I'll head for the beaver pond. They've probably gone somewhere known in order to organize themselves, so you should check the field."

"And if they're not there, I'm stuck dodging branches," Flash sighed.

"...Change your radio to four. I doubt they'll scan for us."

"Right. Well...here goes nothing. Catch you on the flip side."

For all that he had complained of only being able to run at his version of a very slow jog, the other man was a blur as he left the clearing. Once he was alone, Batman turned in a slow circle, observing the surrounding trees and listening to the early-morning calls of the local animals. Would Robin have stayed close to camp, he mused, in order to get an easy drop on them? It wasn't outside the realm of possibility, but he dismissed it quickly. In a real ambush that was exactly what the people looking for them would expect, and his partner had been trained since birth to think of the element of surprise as a good thing. Besides, Kid Flash had looked uncertain when they'd left; if he needed to be convinced of their plan's potential for success, it would be best to move far away from the start point to talk. No, the children weren't nearby, he was certain.

That was no excuse to be incautious, however, so he took his time as he stepped through the same wall of brush that the boys had. There were no obvious signs of passage, but he walked straight forward for a short distance nevertheless. Sure enough, a freshly flipped piece of moss appeared, evidence, he deduced, of Kid Flash's nervous foot shuffling. _So he __did__have to convince him,_ he thought, growing more confident that his judgment about being hunted was correct. _Interesting._

There was little question as to whether or not the younger child had been successful in swaying his friend, but Batman found himself once again wondering just how complex of a plan Robin had already formulated when they'd parted. _This is the wrong side of camp for the beaver pond,_ he frowned. It may have been a purposeful deception, or a simple coincidence. It might also indicate that they hadn't gone in the direction of the small lake at all. _...Hmm..._

Despite his luck in finding sign of KF's recent presence in this area, trying to track them through the forest didn't seem like the best way to start out. Turning on his heel, he strode back to camp and then on towards the creek. Staying to just inside the trees, where he felt less open to attack, he followed the course downstream. If need be he could go back and try to pick up evidence of their passage later, but for now he would stick to what he had told Flash he would do.

It was a peaceful walk, and if either of their proteges were hiding out nearby they missed their chance to get him – however they were planning to do that – as he passed. They hadn't had time yet to create any elaborate traps, but as the stream widened out Batman reminded himself that before long he would need to be on the lookout for tripwires and other basic triggering mechanisms. How many times had he told Robin that taking down your enemy from a distance was the safest method, after all? If he stuck to that, traps were sure to come into play.

The pond was quiet, its surface undisturbed. He didn't know what Kid Flash's opinion was of water, but if the boys _had_ decided to hide he felt safe in assuming that Robin wouldn't be lingering in the depths with a breathing straw running from his mouth to fresh air. While his son could stand diving, he disliked having his face submerged even in just the tub, so it seemed unlikely that he would choose to wait out the morning with the remaining trout population.

He circled the body of water, scanning the edges for bootprints and other indications that the children had come this way. Passing the shelf where they had fished less than a day earlier – there were no gently swishing bodies gathered there yet, as the sun hadn't had time to warm the water – he caught himself on the edge of becoming sentimental. _That's not what I'm here for,_ he growled reluctantly. _Later, maybe._

A muddled half-print caught his attention on the opposite side of the pond. They hadn't ventured to this end of things yesterday, he recalled. His eyes narrowed as they traveled out into the water, searching. They hadn't ventured this far, and even if they had the mud certainly wouldn't still be settling...

The tracks had nearly vanished already, but enough divots remained in the wet lake floor for Batman to determine that he was looking at a clue rather than the aftermath of trout mating. _They were here,but...why_?

A robin passed almost under his nose just then, zipping above the water before coming to rest on a low tree branch. Its black top-feathers blended in with the trunk behind it, but its red breast stood out gloriously. If he had believed in such things, the man standing shin-deep in the water might have thought it was a sign. Being who he was, he chose to take only the obvious facts from the occurrence. Red would stand out in the shadowy forest, as would green and yellow. Both of his targets were wearing bright colors, and their time in the mud suddenly made perfect sense. _Camouflage,_ he nodded. _Well played, Robin._

He had just regained the shoreline when the edge of the sun rose above the treetops, and in the new light he could see that he had missed something during his initial survey of the forest's edge. _A hand print_? He frowned. _That's sloppy. __Very__sloppy. Unless... _Unless it was purposeful, he tried out. _A false trail, maybe..._

_That's not Robin's hand, though, _Bruce pitched in.

Batman started. _...What?_

_That's not his hand. It's too big._

_...It's just extra splatter._

_It's too big, I'm telling you. Just because __you__never hold his hand doesn't mean that I don't, and that's not his hand._

_I just held his hand last night, while we were walking back from the clearing!_ Aggravated by his alter ego's meddling, he crossed his arms.

_And it didn't feel as big as that print looks, now did it?_ Bruce cajoled right back.

He hesitated, remembering something. A few weeks back Robin, having come home from a long patrol in a state of utter exhaustion, had left his gloves on a bench in the changing area instead of putting them away. When Batman had come in behind him and found them, he had been struck by their size. Laid diagonally, the entire hand portion had almost fit inside his own palm. He had shuddered, he recalled now, to think that such delicate fingers performed the same sort of work as his much larger, rougher digits. _...No,_ he allowed after a moment. _I guess it didn't. So Kid Flash, then._

_That's my guess._

_And if they split up..._ About-facing, he trekked back to the thick greenery near the signs he'd found in the mud. Ducking into the shadows, his eyes fell to the ground again. _Kid Flash, indeed,_ he sighed a second later as he spied another skittish scuff mark in the soil. It was a good thing the older boy was fast, because sneaky he was not. They must have regrouped here, he amended his earlier belief that they had worked on the redhead's apprehensions closer to camp, and then gone for the mud. "...Flash," he muttered into his radio.

"Hey. Field's clear, and so's the surrounding forest. How's the pond?"

"Hot. Check the trees opposite the fishing grounds for a hand print. Your quarry has definitely been here and left a trail."

"How about yours?"

"...He can't have gotten far."

"Roger. I'm on my way. Thanks for the heads up."

"Out." As the conversation ended, Batman wished he had a more concrete idea as to where Robin had gone from here. _You can't have gotten far,_ he repeated to himself as he began to move deeper into the woods. _I __will__find you, Robin. And when I do...well..._ A faint smile ghosted across his lips. _You'll still have done a very good job._


	26. Chapter 26

Time trickled away. Batman made his way through the forest, slipping from shadow to vanishing shadow and regretting the rising sun. It had been one thing to stand at the edge of the pond when the world had still had a twilight air to it, but to hunt with limited places to hide was not his idea of a good time. He needed to find Robin, and fast, if he wanted to end the game before his stealth was sapped.

Knowing his son as he did, he kept the majority of his attention turned towards the canopy. The air seemed like a more natural space for the acrobat to hide in than the forest floor, and besides that, he smirked, there were less likely to be bears up high. If the boy had managed to make enough mud stick to his costume, he might even blend in somewhat. That advantage would only increase as the sun rose higher and threatened to blind anyone looking upwards from the wrong angle. His mouth tightened at that thought, and he quickened his pace. There was a lot of area to cover before noon, especially since he had to proceed as if he was being chased by his quarry.

"...Batman?" Flash's voice sounded in his ear.

"Here," he whispered back.

"I've got a problem."

"...That being?" He hadn't been caught _already_, surely...

"Um...there're signs _everywhere_."

He frowned. "Clarify."

"Well, I went where you said, right, and I found the hand print you were talking about. It was Kid's, no question. There were some other marks further into the trees – a boot print, a couple of broken branches, you know, typical stuff – so I followed them. But...well..."

"...Well _what_?" he snapped, the other man's interruption beginning to annoy him. It was difficult to scan the treetops, mind his footfalls, listen to the speedster, _and _try to formulate intelligent answers all at the same time, but he didn't dare stop moving. While sitting and waiting was a viable solution at home, where he knew the high-risk corridors and didn't have to search much to find a crime in progress, here such a tactic would likely lead to failure. Even if Robin wasn't on the move and actively looking for him, midday would come soon enough; he had no time to spare.

"Weeeell...the trail's crossed over itself twice now. I mean, it could be coincidence – he's not exactly experienced in the woods, he could just be wandering around – but it feels...off."

"Mm." It was a bit of a quandary, he had to admit as he considered the possibilities. He couldn't argue with Flash's statement that his protege was far from a master woodsman, and if the children had split up the odds of Kid Flash getting turned around seemed much higher. That went double if he'd been putting on bursts of speed to try and distance himself from the beaver lake. On the other hand, the boy wasn't an idiot; if he had crossed his own trail, Batman expected that he would have recognized as much and adjusted course accordingly in order to un-lose himself.

Beyond that, there was reason to think that he might know exactly what he was doing, and had _wanted_ to go back over his previous paths. Creating false evidence in order to confuse a pursuer was the sort of thing that Robin would be prone to coming up with, and running through the woods and pulling the wool over the eyes of his mentor was very much Kid Flash's speed. "Use caution," he advised finally. "It may be a coincidence, as you said, but we can't rule out it being part of their plan."

"I'm not sure I should stay on it. If he's leading up to a trap..."

"If a twelve-year-old is leading up to a trap, Flash, then I would hope you could spot it before you fell into it. Besides, if you leave the trail what will you do instead?"

"...Point taken. I'll let you know if it gets any weirder."

"Fine. Out." Turning his concentration back to his own pursuit, Batman found himself scoffing at his team mate's hesitation to advance. To take note of an uncomfortable gut feeling was one thing, but to suggest abandoning the lead entirely was something else. _What I wouldn't give to have a clear trail,_ he groused, _even if it __was__ likely to guide me into an ambush. _At least then, he thought dourly, he would know he was in the right part of the forest.

He didn't have Flash's luck, however. The limbs overhead remained unoccupied, and the soil below failed to yield so much as a suspiciously bent blade of glass. _...I may have taught him __too__ well, _he mused.

_Heh. He's outwitting you, _Bruce chortled._ This is fantastic._

_He hasn't won yet. There are several three hours to go._ _I'll find him._ He spoke with confidence, but the emotion was beginning to flag. At his current pace he wouldn't be able to cover more than a fraction of the permissible hiding zone. If Robin had, in fact, misled him into thinking that they would be both the hunters and the hunted...if he was, for instance, hunkered down in the far corner of their playing field and simply waiting out the morning...then...

_Then he'll win easily,_ his alter ego laughed. _I can't even be mad at him for it if that's the case. It's just too good._

_...Shut up,_ Batman growled back. The lack of any sign of human passage was disturbing, yes, he reassured himself over Bruce's amused chuckles, but that was no reason to alter his course. How many cases had he solved after others had given up on them due to insufficient evidence? More than once had he despaired of ever proving the guilt of someone he knew to be the perpetrator of some foul deed, and yet he'd stayed on course and been vindicated in the end. That was what he needed to do now, was push on. The worst possible scenario would be if Robin stayed free until noon and then explained how he'd done so, and even that would give him greater knowledge of the boy's tactical methodology. _There's no way for me to truly lose, _he decided. _...But I'm still going to win._

"Uuuuuh...Batman?"

"What?"

"Remember how I said I'd let you know if things got any weirder? Well, they just took a turn for the creepy."

"Explain."

"I'm standing in the middle of a bunch of marked trees."

"...You believe that there's a trap waiting for you, so you've chosen a clearly marked circle as a place to stop and think things through?" he sneered, unimpressed.

"I know, I know, it sounds stupid, but...I've been here for five minutes now, and nothing's happened."

"...Nothing?"

"_Nothing_."

"...Proceed with caution."

It was Flash's turn to sound underwhelmed. "Is that seriously the only advice you've got? I feel like I've walked into a bad voodoo film, or one of those old-timey romantic thrillers where the only two Europeans for a thousand miles have to escape the jungle before they're massacred, eaten, or go insane, and you give me 'proceed with caution'?"

"What do you want me to suggest? Making muddy hand prints of your own on a few trees, just to see what happens?"

There was a pause. "That's not a bad idea."

"That was _not_ a serious proposal, Flash."

"Are you kidding? Reverse psychology is a _brilliant_ proposal. You use it all the time, so why can't I play around with it a little? I'm doing it," a hint of a grin carried through the radio. "Poor Kid's going to go out of his mind trying to figure out what I'm up to...oh, man...Flash out."

_...Leave it to a pair of speedsters to turn a legitimate training exercise into a prank war,_ Batman grimaced as the conversation ended. _They'll probably confuse each other so much that they'll get completely lost and I'll end up having to lead them back to camp by the hand._

Then, for the first time since he'd set out from the pond, he halted. His eyes widened under the cowl as he finally spotted proof that he had gone in the right direction. Ten feet overhead hung a snapped branch, the pattern of its bark interrupted by several small clods of dried mud. One dropped to the grass as he watched, and a grin sneaked onto his lips. _He's close, and he's up high. Check, kiddo._

For all that just finding the boy was a major first step, though, the problem went beyond that. If he managed to pick the camouflaged Robin out of shifting green-and-blue kaleidoscope above, he still had to actually get his hands on him. There was no good way to join him off the ground; while most of the trees around had limbs capable of supporting a skinny ten-year-old, there was no way they wouldn't snap under someone four times his weight. Even if he found one that _could_ hold him, his nimble partner would have no trouble leaping away to safety.

His lips tightened as he recalled the last time he had sat and watched the youth play on his ever-expanding set of bars and rings. _He did a good imitation of a tailless monkey in the cave; god only knows how uncanny the resemblance will be in the forest, _he calculated. _I'm going to have to corner him somewhere that his only option is down. _The other methods open to him – nets, gas, and the like – could too easily cause his son injury, and while he wanted this to be as realistic a scenario as possible failure was preferable to pain in this situation. Blocking his aerial escape route in the middle of a forest was going to be a mean feat, though.

Putting the question of how he was going to get his high-flying target's back against the wall aside for the moment, he redoubled his efforts to spot an odd angle, a hint of movement, anything that would give him an exact location to focus on. The irony of his standing still in the middle of what might well have been a trap just as Flash had did not escape him, but he didn't smile at the comparison. As had been the case with the other man, nothing was sprung on him, and after several minutes of fruitless searching he conceded that Robin wasn't directly above him. Giving the forest floor a cursory glance, he returned his eyes to the canopy and took several slow steps forward. If he worked in ever-widening circles, he would find him, surely. Even if the markings of his passage hadn't been left intentionally, the boy would be moving just as cautiously as he was. There was time now that he knew he was in the right area...

The faintest _swish-squish_ of something shifting position in the rain-damp undergrowth behind him drew his attention. It could have been a squirrel, he knew, or a bird, or even the bear that had frightened the children the day before. Batman wasn't sure how such a large creature could have been so close without his noticing it, but the bruin's appearance would at least explain why Robin would have moved without giving thought to the muddy signposts he'd left behind. Just in case, he tightened his fists as he turned. He'd never punched a bear before, but if it came down to it he was willing to give it go. It couldn't possibly hurt any more than hitting Clark did, after all.

A flash of mottled red registered in his brain, and he realized belatedly that his quarry had defied expectation and gone to ground. He began to lean forward as his muscles switched priority from standing his ground to giving chase. His back foot lifted off of the ground, his knee drawing it up in preparation for a broad running stride, and that was when a heavy wad of damp sludge hit him square in the face.

An ambush had seemed likely, and a chase had been probable, but a mud ball to the nose was the last thing he'd expected. He'd kept his footing under plenty of blows in his life that were much more forceful than anything Robin could dream of managing, but the shock of the strike plus his one-legged posture sent him tumbling backwards. The earth received him with a wet _thump_ that hurt his pride far worse than his backside, and for the space of a heartbeat he could do nothing but sit with his mouth agape.

_...He got me,_ he marveled as rank-smelling muck began to drip from his chin. _That sneaky, brilliant, so-going-to-catch-it-for-chucking-mud-at-me little bird __got me__. _A proud, disbelieving smile contorted his lips, and it felt so good that he ignored the taste of lake it brought with it. _I'll be god damned..._


	27. Chapter 27

From the moment he'd seen Batman moving through the forest, Robin had thought that the game was up. His confidence had waxed and waned the entire time he'd waited for his target to come to him, but it had plummeted once the man was actually in view. _KF was right,_ he had gulped as he realized that the cowl was turned upwards to scan the canopy. _Outsmarting a bunch of dumb guards was one thing, but...this is Batman we're talking about!_

He'd done what he could, though, slithering silently backwards on his limb and circling the tree so he could climb down the opposite side. Huddled at the base, he'd considered his options. If he went fast he might be able to escape, but there was KF to consider. He'd talked his friend into ambushing their mentors, and it would be traitorous to leave him as the sole hunter for their team. So instead he'd waited, chewing his lip and hoping that the figure who had halted just a few short feet away would move past and give him a chance to strike.

At least five minutes had passed between when the ball of mud left his palm and when it connected with Batman's face, he'd felt. _He's gonna dodge it,_ his had shoulders slumped as his foot slipped on damp moss and the black-clad body began to turn back. _He'll duck, or block it, or something, and I'll be totally caught. _Even once the projectile had hit home and sent his opponent crashing to earth, his brain refused to believe what it was seeing. _No way. No, no way..._

"No way," he whispered aloud as his eyes bulged beneath his mask. "No _way_ did I really get you. No...no way."

Batman didn't answer, but an odd grin that Robin had never seen before spread beneath the dark dirt coating his face. An instant later he man leaped to his feet with a speed that shouldn't have been possible in someone so well-built and began to barrel towards him. _Oh crap!_

His legs moved without him telling them to, propelling him back towards the pond. The crashing emanating from behind him told him that his pursuer wasn't far off, and he put on all the speed he could to try and widen the gap. He ducked branches and bushes only to listen in dismay as they were bulldozed through immediately afterward. _He's gonna catch me. He's so gonna catch me...!_

A distance that it had taken many slow, cautious minutes to traverse before was gone with a shocking quickness, and he tumbled out onto the open grass girding the beaver lake. The roll he went into out of habit brought him back to his feet, but it was too late. Batman swept in from the side and tackled him, shifting their positions in midair so that it wasn't Robin's back that scraped along the sand at the water's edge.

The moment their slide stopped, the boy found himself flipped and pinned. "No fair!" he began to protest. Then fingers dug into his sides and began to tickle him mercilessly, and all of the air rushed out of his lungs in a giggling cry. "Stop, stop, stoooop, I already won!"

Eventually the torture ceased. Batman sat back, dragged a hand over his face, and flung a spray of mud back into the water it had come from. "...You did," he acknowledged, the strange expression he'd worn in the forest reappearing for the space of a heartbeat.

Not having expected an admission of defeat to be so easily gotten, he blinked at him. "Wait, I...I did?"

"You know you did."

"I do, I just...I thought you'd argue about it. You know, since it was just mud?" He wasn't sure why he was trying to shoot himself in the foot, but he chalked it up to shock. "Aren't...aren't you going to make me explain?"

"No, I'm not. Had that been a batarang, I would have a broken nose and a concussion right now. Since this is a training session, you used a less dangerous alternative and left everything except my reputation intact. I assume you wouldn't use a glob of mud against a real enemy?"

"I...well, no," he blushed. "Of course not."

"Then no further explanation is needed." There was a pause. "How long had you been hiding at the base of that tree?"

"Um...like thirty seconds. I almost got caught," he confessed. "I was up high, and then I saw you and realized you were _expecting_ me to be in the air. I should have figured that out beforehand. Then again, being above you _did_ let me see you coming, so..." He shrugged. "I don't know. It worked out."

"So you didn't plant the mud to mislead me?"

"The mud?" His nose wrinkled. "What mud?"

"There were clumps of it stuck to a branch."

"Oh. I guess those must have come off of my clothes," he frowned, looking down at his tarnished costume. "Oh, no...Al- you know who's going to kill us, isn't he?"

"I doubt it. We've come home covered in much worse things."

"That's true," he relaxed. "Anyway, I didn't plant it."

"What about KF? Is _he_ planting mud?"

Robin cackled suddenly, overjoyed to hear that his partner in crime had followed his plan. "Yes, but don't tell Flash, it'll ruin it."

"I won't tell Flash. But what is the point of leaving a thousand obvious trails?"

"Confusion!" he crowed. "He kept saying how Flash is faster than him, so we needed a way to slow him down. The trees already did that a lot – although I guess he could just rhino through them like you – but if he was slow _and_ distracted by trying to decipher what was going on it would give KF a chance to sneak up on him. Plus...well, KF's not the greatest at stealth, you know? I figured the less of it he had to do, the better."

"Mm...and how do you think he'll handle confusion of his own?"

He hesitated as he detected a note of triumph in the defeated man's voice. "...What do you mean? Why would _he_ be confused?"

"Why would I answer that when my team still has a chance to win?"

_Crud! What am I doing, sitting here with him and talking? I should be helping KF!_ He'd been so busy trying not to explode with joy over having captured his mentor that he'd forgotten they had to catch both adults in order to be successful. "...Wait," he said slowly as an idea formed in his head. "Do you really?"

"Do I really what?"

"Have a chance to win? Think about it; I have you, unconscious and tied up by now. Flash doesn't know where KF is, because he's confused by the signs. There are only the two of you playing baddies, which means that no one's guarding your helicopter. If you couldn't detect our tracking devices, then you probably couldn't hack our radios, either. I can just call KF and have him join me. If I gagged you and woke you up with smelling slats, we could make you walk back to the field and then tell us how to fly away." A fresh smirk graced his lips. "Flash wouldn't even know we were gone until we were flying overhead. He's fast, but I don't think he could flap his arms fast enough to come after us once we were airborne. We've already won the whole thing!"

An amused guffaw escaped from beneath the cowl. "Tell me, Robin; do you have an answer for everything?"

"Shouldn't I?" he rebutted half-seriously. "You do."

"There's one thing I don't know."

"What?"

"How you knew I would come by where you were waiting."

"I didn't know. I figured you would check the pond, because that's somewhere we've been and you always say that when people are in trouble they tend to go to familiar places. If you found KF's marks, I thought you'd think I went the other way, so that's the way I went."

"And if I hadn't come by?"

"I guess eventually I'd have had to come looking for you." It wasn't an idea he relished considering how uncertain he'd been right up until Batman had fallen onto the seat of his pants, but fortunately things hadn't gone that far. "I probably wouldn't do things this way with real baddies, like people I didn't know. We'd probably have just ambushed them while they were in the camp, or watched them until they split up and _then_ gotten them. But I knew I couldn't do that with you, so...here we are."

"Here we are," Batman repeated with a nod. "And Robin?"

"Uh huh?"

"If the time ever comes, I have no doubt that you will be able to take out just about anyone who comes looking for you."

He grinned. "Well _yeah_. None of them are as good as you, and I managed that, so..."

"Thinly veiling your ego in praise for others is not an attractive habit. But your point stands, so I'll let it go."

They sat for a minute after that, just watching each other and enjoying the solitude. There were no crimes to be stopped, no puzzles to be solved, and no schemes to interrupt; there was only the woods, quiet companionship, and the pride of success. If every person could spend a few minutes every morning in a meditative air like this one, Robin thought, there would be much less work to be done in the dark hours.

The relaxing atmosphere was broken, naturally enough, by the speedsters. "Dude, bro, _dude_, I got him, I got him, _I got him_!" Kid Flash's voice came through his radio without warning.

"Ooooww...that's great, bro," he winced. "Hold on, I'll tell Batman." A raised hand confronted him. "...Is Flash telling him? I think they're on the radio, too."

"Oh, yeah, he's mumbling to himself. Heehee...you should see him, the whole side of his head is muddy. But you got Batman? That's awesome!"

"Yup, I got him. Right in the face."

"_Nice_!"

"Ack..." His ear was ringing with the other boy's excitement. "Could you guys come back to the pond? We're near where we got the mud."

"I'll get Flash. I mean...I'll get my _prisoner!"_ With another happy laugh, Kid Flash ended the conversation.

"They'll be here in a second," he told his partner when the risk of his eardrum shattering had been abated.

"Or now," Batman replied, nodding to indicate the space over Robin's shoulder.

A gust of wind blew past as if on cue, and a second after that there was a fist hovering in front of him. "We won!" KF squealed, his words almost as loud in person as they had been long distance.

"We won," he grinned back despite the fact that he was beginning to think he'd be deaf before the end of the day. "I told you we could do it."

"I was so scared I was gonna screw up. He totally almost got me at the end!"

"Yeah...Batman almost got me, too."

"But we won!"

"You bet you did," Flash, who would have been glowing if the pride he was radiating had been a radioactive substance, laughed. "Kid and I had a little dance going on for a bit, like he said, but I got wise to the game too late. He tagged me fair and square." He pointed to the remnants of mud clinging to the area over his ear. "I'm just glad it wasn't a rock. It's hard to run when you're unconscious. Where'd you get hit, Batman?"

"...I would think that was obvious, Flash," the cowled figure looked up.

"Oof...smack in the puss. That's harsh. Good aim, though, Robin. I guess we don't have to worry about you two escaping from a herd of baddies. You seem to have that covered."

"We're awesome like that," Kid Flash bragged. "Aren't we, bro?"

"You bet we are," Robin concurred. He was certain that there were things he could have done better, but his friend's ecstatic attitude made it impossible to mull the question over. Tucking it aside until he could get Batman to hash it out with him later, he nudged the figure beside him. "Are you hungry? I bet we can have breakfast now that the bad guys are neutralized."

"Breakfast!" The older boy jumped up. "I was so into chasing – well, confusing – Flash that I almost forgot I was hungry!"

"And that's saying something," Flash joked.

"It really is," KF agreed, taking the comment seriously. "So, can we go eat now?"

All eyes turned to Batman, who was once again trying to wrestle down that inexplicable smirk. Robin wasn't sure what it meant, but the more he saw it the more he liked it. He'd have to ask about that, too, once they had a minute to themselves. "...That's fine, Kid Flash," a short nod released them from their test. "Go ahead back to camp, if you want; we'll meet you there."

"Great! C'mon, Flash, I'm starving!"

His imperative issued, KF vanished. "...Wait for a guy to reply, why don't you?" the elder speedster lectured. "Ah, who am I kidding? I'm starving, too. See you guys in a few." Then he was gone, too.

The remaining pair rose to their feet and began the now-familiar trek upstream. "...Robin?" Batman murmured as they reached the spot where the creek flowed into the pond.

"Yes, Batman?" he craned his neck to look up at the still-muddy jaw above him.

Fingers squeezed the top of his arm. "You did very well this morning. I want you to know that. Come fall...come fall, I think the likes of Scarecrow and Poison Ivy should be worried."

His breath caught. "Really?"

"...Really."

"I...thanks," he breathed, elated. _I did it,_ a little bounce came into his step. _I beat Batman in a hunt, and I'm going to beat tougher and tougher baddies, too. Now...now he knows I can do it. Now he won't hold me back, I don't think._

Neither his delirious smile nor the gauntlet on his shoulder left their positions the entire way back to camp.


	28. Chapter 28

The rest of the morning passed in a happy blur. They ate what was left of their fish and berries on the sand at the edge of the creek, rehashing the details of the hunt and generally enjoying themselves. Batman, Robin noted, said little, but he supposed that that was to be expected after the man had been dealt such a sound defeat. It was only as they were disposing of the last tiny trout bones that his mentor spoke more than two words in a row.

"Robin?"

"Huh?" He turned from where he was splashing the muddier patches on his uniform with water in an attempt to make Alfred's job a bit easier when they got home. "Yes, Batman?"

"You're only making things worse by doing that."

He looked down. "Oh...crud. I know we've come home with way worse stuff on us, just like you said, but...were still _really _dirty."

"Yeeeeah," Flash and Kid Flash examined their own clothes with a groan.

"Yes, but smearing it around won't help the situation," Batman answered, ignoring the speedsters. "And you're more likely to get a lecture for removing your bandage than for the mud in any case."

"I needed it to make the mud balls, though. I didn't have anything else that would work like that to hold them together. Besides, that thing was like a flag on the side of my head. You'd have seen me from a million miles away if I'd kept it on. Maybe...maybe this way it will be less noticeable," he proposed hopefully. "He might not even see that I got nicked!"

Flash let out a snort. "Sorry, Robin, but think about who you're dealing with."

He heaved a sigh, his brief hope quashed. "I know. But there's nothing I can do about it now, unless you want me to go find the gauze, rinse it out, and put it back on my ear." The last part was directed at Batman, and came out as a half-proposal. It wouldn't have surprised him to be instructed to do exactly that. _It's going to take forever to find it out in the woods,_ he frowned. _I don't even know where KF __was__ when he threw his mud ball..._

"No, I don't want you to do that. Even if it wasn't likely to take hours, putting a dirty bandage back on in this instance would be worse than wearing none at all. I do want you to tell me, however, what you would do if you had used your bandage for something but were still in a survival situation."

"Um...I guess I'd just keep it as clean as I could, and try to only wash it with boiled water?" He wasn't sure that was the right answer, but it was the only thing he could think to do. "And if I _did_ find something I could cover it with, like a piece of a baddie's clothes or whatever, I'd do that," he added.

"Mm. Good." Seemingly satisfied, Batman stood up. "If you're done disposing of the fish, we have other work to do."

"Work?" KF made a face. "I thought the hunt was our final test!"

"It was. Now we have to prepare to leave."

"Can't we just hang out for a little while longer?" Robin backed his friend up. "It's not even noon yet!"

"By the time we've cleaned everything up, it will be. Additionally, Gotham and Central City are both two hours ahead of us, which means that leaving right at noon would put us home around five or five-thirty. Dinner time," he pointed out.

"I know, but...if we hadn't come after you, and you hadn't caught us, we'd have been out in the woods until noon," he crossed his arms. "Then we still would have had to eat and do all that other stuff to get ready to go. So, if we weren't going to get home until seven or eight in the original plan...well...just a _little_ time, Batman? Please?" _I'm not ready to go,_ he pouted. _I want to spend more time with KF. We only see each other Saturdays, and it's not fair..._

"Yeah, please?" Kid Flash followed his lead.

"...Jeez, man, lighten up," Flash pitched in mildly when there was no response. "Half an hour, an hour at most. They worked hard this weekend, cut 'em a break. So we get home a little later. It's not like we won't have plenty of time for a shower and some grub before we go out on patrol."

Batman's mouth remained firm, but Robin recognized the way he clenched his jaw when he was trying to come up with a reason not to capitulate. "_Please_?" he repeated, folding his hands pleadingly under his chin. "I won't even bug you about going out tonight, since it's a fake school night. I promise."

"...I suppose thirty minutes is acceptable," was ground out. "_But_," the cowled figure went on before cheers could do more than begin to be voiced, "we break down camp first."

"Deal!" Robin agreed as he skipped up to him. He'd intended to deliver a tight hug of thanks, but he stopped short, remembering that such things were generally frowned upon when they were masked. "You're the best."

"Mm. Perhaps." For a second he thought he saw a hint of the unusual smile that had wreathed the man's face during their trek up the creek. "...Now go fill in the fire pit and scatter the rocks in camp like you did out here."

"Okay! C'mon, KF, let's work fast so we have more time to play."

"Fast?" the redhead smirked. "I'm good at fast."

He wasn't afraid to prove it, either, and Robin found himself outpaced by his friend's furious speed more than once in the hour that followed. "You're _too_ fast," he accused jokingly when he tossed his second fire ring rock into the trees then turned back to find that there were no more to be moved. "I feel like I'm not helping!"

"Eh, you came up with our epic attack plan. Me, I'm good at moving rocks. So...I moved the rocks," Kid Flash shrugged. "No big deal."

Breaking down the shelters was the one area where Robin was sure that fleet footedness wouldn't be much use. He was right at first, but as the task dragged on he began to miss the feeling of looking away from a project for two seconds only for it to be completed in his moment of distraction. "Hey, bro," he called over to where KF had bared half of his bivy's frame. "You know how Batman said we had to take all these branches and stuff back into the forest?"

"Yeah?"

"Well, I'm better at knots than you, right? Plus I have a knife for the zip ties. So why don't I tear down, and you can scatter the stuff as I pull it off?"

"You got it!"

Fifteen minutes later they stood in the middle of the restored clearing and beamed at one another. "Super break down," Robin held out a fist.

"Heck yes," Kid Flash's knuckles met his. "Hey!" he hollered towards the creek, where the adults had opted to wait. "We're all done!"

For a moment there was no response. Then Flash's laughter could be heard through the trees, and the boys' grins widened.

"Bet you a cookie that he and Batman were talking about how long it would take us, and Flash was right," KF said.

"Bet you a cookie that Batman wouldn't bet," he retorted. He knew better, of course, but that wasn't the point. What _was_ the point was that the last time they'd bet a cookie on something and he'd won KF hadn't managed to save the promised treat until he arrived for their usual Saturday hang. The other boy had been embarrassed by the failure his overeager stomach had caused, and the look of worthlessness that Robin hated had come into his eyes. Even knowing that the shadow was a remnant of his friend's father and not really due to any action of his own wasn't enough to curb his dislike of it, and ever since he'd been trying to craft his wagers to ensure that he would be the one who lost. He supposed his bluff would be called sooner or later, but until then he was happy to schlep Alfred's finest baked goods between the manor and the Mount Justice lounge.

"You're on."

The adults emerged from the foliage a minute later. Flash approached them, but Batman stopped at the edge of the open space and examined everything from a distance. "Mr. Picky has a no-footprint approach," the elder speedster joked.

"...What's wrong with that?" he asked. "We should put things back the way we found them."

"Sure, but there's a reasonable level at which to do that. Somehow I think he counted how many pine cones were on the ground when we came and will want them all oriented the right way before we go."

He shook his head. "I don't think so. I mean, he didn't make us go out and get the gauze off the ground, so... Did you guys happen to bring yours back with you?"

"Nope. I didn't even know there _was_ gauze in that mess that hit me." Wearing his proud face again, Flash reached out and draped an arm over his protege's shoulders. "And I _might_ have been exaggerating about the pine cones. But just maybe," he winked.

Robin smiled at that. "Well...okay. How's it look?" he changed the topic of their conversation as Batman walked up to them.

"It's sufficiently restored. Keep in mind," the cowl turned towards Flash, "that it's important to be able to cover your tracks. Just because you have to stop and rest when you're being pursued doesn't mean you have to leave blatant evidence of your presence."

"Point taken," the other man waved away, "by me _and_ the boys. But I still won."

"Ah ha! They _did_ have a bet!" KF crowed. "Cookie to me next weekend!"

"Darn," he acted bummed. "I thought I'd win that one for sure. I can't believe you made a _bet_, Batman. What would you-know-who say?"

The corner of his mentor's mouth twitched. "You-know-who isn't opposed to the occasional friendly wager himself," he spilled. "...But you didn't hear that from me."

"Is there more? Please tell me there's more," Flash queried mischievously. "Tell me he used to be a Monte Carlo high roller or something. Hell, tell me he's _still_ on the lists in Monaco. That would make my day."

"I think he'd prefer to answer that question himself. In person," Batman returned silkily.

"...Yeah, no. I like my coffee unburned, thanks, and from what little you've let slip in the past he wouldn't hesitate to destroy mine for three or four visits after a question like that."

"You're not wrong."

"Then I guess I'll just continue to live in the darkness." He paused. "...You're going to tell me sometime when we're _not _in masks, though, right?"

Batman stared at him, then looked at Kid Flash. "Remind me which of you is the child again."

"Um...him?" the redhead pointed at his mentor.

"Correct."

"Hey! Curiosity isn't a crime!"

"No, but pushing Batman for answers almost is," Robin giggled.

"Also correct," a low rumble agreed.

"Oh, well, so long as that's settled," Flash sighed melodramatically. "A guy asks a simple question..."

"And gets the answer he deserves," the cowled man finished for him. "With that in mind, would you prefer to take your half-hour of free time in the field or to waste it standing here and asking me things I've no intention of answering?"

"Field!" both boys voted in unison.

"That's fine. I can ask questions there just as well as here."

"Flash," a warning came.

"I'm _kidding_. Oy, Batman," he shook his head. "You're a piece of work, you know that? In a good way, but...still a piece of work."

"Mm. Robin?"

"Yes?" he managed around the laughter he was trying to hold back.

"Lead the way."

"Okay. But I have a question for _you_, Flash."

"Putting me in the hot seat? Okay, I'll bite. What's up?"

"If KF had threatened to keep asking things once we got to the field, and had defended himself the way you did, would you say he was 'Kid'ding?" He drew air quotes around the operative syllable of his joke, then tried not to collapse from the amusement building in his throat as he waited for the others to react.

"Ha!" Flash cried out, pointing at him. "Punny!"

"'Kid'ding...'punny'..." Kid Flash doubled over with laughter. "Oh, man, bro, that was _hilarious_..."

Grinning until it felt like his face was about to crack in half, he glanced up at Batman. The lips beneath the cowl were pursed, but there was a definite twist at their ends that told him it was taking his mentor a great deal of effort to not join in the jocularity. He sensed that their eyes met through their lenses, and for the space of a heartbeat he saw a glimmer of teeth. _There,_ he preened as the speedster-quick grin flew by. _I made you laugh at a bad joke while you were in costume, even though you didn't want to._

_I win again, Batman._


	29. Chapter 29

Batman glanced over at Robin as they broke into the clearing and the boy laughed. "...What is it?"

"The plane." A green-gloved hand pointed at the sleek black craft in the middle of the field. "We really _could _have hijacked your airplane to escape!"

"Hijacking the Batplane," Flash mused out loud. "Now _there's_ a dangerous proposition. What've you got waiting in there for anyone who were to try that, anyway? Electrical shocks, ejection seats...?"

"There's something for everyone," he glowered back. He knew the question hadn't been a bald-faced attempt to work around his defenses, but he still didn't like it. Just because the other man was an ally and, as he'd been forced to admit this weekend, a...friend...didn't mean he was going to start spilling secrets left and right.

"Except me, right?" Robin grinned up at him.

"...Except you," he allowed. "But you wouldn't be hijacking it if you were to use it."

Something in the tilt of the child's lips told him that he was thinking of instances that would be exceptions to that rule. _Don't,_ he begged silently. _Not now. Just...just keep quiet about it._ "Go play," he ordered before capture, torture, and other forms of duress could be brought up. "You're burning away your free time."

"Okay. C'mon, KF. Wanna race?"

"There's a fair activity," Flash joked.

"I wouldn't use super-speed against Rob," Kid Flash frowned at his mentor. "That wouldn't be any fun." He turned to the other boy. "Ready, bro?"

"Ready-set-go!"

They took off, both already giggling as they tore through the grass. Batman watched them for a long moment, marveling at their ease. Robin and Kid Flash had known each other six months, and were the best of friends; he and Flash had fought together for six years, and yet he was still hesitant to answer simple inquiries. It was through no fault of Flash's that that was the case, either, and they both knew it. "...They work well together."

"Well, we knew that, didn't we?" The speedster shook his head. "They're something else, Batman. Separate, together...they're something else." A beat passed. "While we're on the subject, you know they're going to ask when they'll see each other again."

"Saturday, as usual."

"To which they'll reply, no doubt in those voices they have that manage to be both adorable and annoying as hell at the same time, 'but what about more camping'?"

"Mm..." The idea he'd been formulating since the topic of a future trip had first been broached was still only half-finished, but he supposed it wouldn't kill him to share that, at least, with the other man. "When does Kid Flash start school again?"

"I'd have to check. Probably either right before or right after Labor Day. What about Robin?"

"The same, I believe. Find out and get back to me. If they both start after Labor Day, the long weekend might ideal."

"A three-day weekend? Careful; people might start to think you had fun out here in the wild."

"Mm. What I have in mind is more wild than even this place."

"Really?" Flash shifted to face him, his expression intrigued. "Spoilers?"

"Alpine tundra."

"...I know I asked for wide open spaces, but you want to climb mountains in _September_? You realize we'll come back as popsicles, right?"

"That's the point. There was no real challenge in terms of temperature this time. If they are ever truly stranded, what are the odds that they will experience comfortable day and night-time weather? Extreme cold or extreme heat are likely to be more dangerous to them than any pursuers. They need to be trained to deal with it." He paused. "We will obviously have more emergency supplies available in September than we did for this outing. My intention isn't to actually allow them to freeze, just to make them feel as if it's a distinct possibility. That's why we aren't going in January." _This time,_ he thought.

"...I guess I can see that. Well...where are you thinking? You said it was wilder than here, but this is pretty damn middle-of-nowhere."

"Alaska."

"A-" Flash sputtered. "You want to take the kids to _Alaska_ for Labor Day weekend?!"

"Yes. Do you have a problem with that?"

"Not necessarily, but...jeez. Damn. Have you been there?"

"Yes. Haven't you?"

"...No. All I really know about it is that it's a long run from home. That's what, twice the distance of coming here?"

"Roughly. But I don't expect you to run if you don't want to." Pausing, he steeled himself for what he was about to say. "You and Kid Flash could fly with Robin and I in the plane."

A low, impressed whistle escaped the man beside him. "Really?"

"I offered, did I not?" he replied tetchily. _Don't make me repeat it. I won't._

"You did. I have to ask, though...will you even turn off all of the little traps that would normally shock, eject, or otherwise incapacitate us?"

Fortunately for Flash, Batman glanced over and saw his jesting grin before he rescinded his offer in a fit of pique. "Don't touch anything I tell you not to, and you'll probably survive," he answered, his lip almost twitching upward.

"Great. Although if you _happen_ to have chairs that make your passengers uncomfortably hot, leave them on. We'll probably want those to work after we spend three days on the side of an Alaskan mountain."

"I'll keep it in mind."

"Man...Alaska. That could be fun. Educational, I mean," he backtracked. "Very...educational."

"...Flash?" Batman peered at him, slightly boggled that he could not only tolerate such a personality without snapping but occasionally even find himself amused by it.

"Yeah?"

"Give it up."

"Heh." The speedster reached up and scratched the back of his head as a faint trace of embarrassed color rose into his cheeks. "...Okay. I wouldn't want you to 'forget' to take me home on our next trip."

"It would be pointless. You'd just turn up again in a few hours and whine about your legs being sore."

"You're not wrong, Batman," Flash chuckled. "You're not wrong."

* * *

Forty minutes later, Batman looked up from the cockpit controls to find Robin staring out the window at the receding Rockies. "...She would have been proud of your performance this weekend," he said in a low voice. _I wish I had known beforehand,_ his mouth tightened. There were plenty of other remote forests they could have gone to instead, but he'd had to choose one that would cause his son pain. _Damn my lack of foresight._

"...Really? I mean...I know we did good, like at the end and stuff, but..." Robin turned from the glass to stare at his knees, which he'd pulled to his chest in an unconscious defensive position when they'd come back into view of the mountains. "There was a lot of stuff we could have done better, you know?"

He wasn't going to argue with that assessment – there _had_ been things that could have been done better – but neither was he going to let the boy beside him end the weekend thinking he'd done poorly. "Yes," he began, "but that is the point of training, as we discussed. You can't know what areas you are weak in until you put yourself to the test, and when you _did_ find something you were less than expert at you were quick to try and think of ways to improve. That's progress, Robin, and progress is the route to perfection. I stand behind my earlier statement; she would be proud."

"I...thanks." His voice was still downcast, but Batman glimpsed a tiny smile from the corner of his eye.

"You're welcome."

"Um...Can I ask you a question?"

"So long as it isn't going to be about the next training trip, then yes." The boys had, as Flash predicted, pestered them to know if and when they would get to spend a whole weekend together in costume again soon. The adults had revealed only that another plan was in the works for sometime before the start of school, and the dual groans that their refusal of any further information had drawn were still echoing in Batman's ears. He had no wish to hear a solo repetition of them now.

"It's not. It's...you had a funny look on your face earlier, after I caught you. Do you know what I'm talking about?"

"...No. What look?"

"Baaaatman..."

"Fine," he capitulated, well aware of what Robin was referring to. "Yes, I recall that look. What about it?"

"Well...you said mom...mom would be proud of me for this weekend. So I was wondering if that look was there because _you_ were proud, too? Maybe?"

There was a hopeful note in that last word that forced him to tear his attention away from the dashboard and turn it fully to the youth. "How else do you think I could know how she would feel?"

"Because you're smart."

"...Because I felt the same as she would have, Robin."

"Oh." A happy smile wiped the last melancholy off of the pointed pixie face. "I'm glad I made you proud. And her, too."

"As am I."

"I had fun this weekend, too," the boy commented. His legs slid back to hang from the edge of his seat, and he kicked them idly in the air. "And we learned a _lot_. Like, a lot a lot."

"Good." He left it at that, expecting the conversation to turn back into a quest for information now that his partner seemed to have gotten over another emotional hump.

"Um...I know you said not to ask, but..."

"Robin," he sighed, exasperated. Then he paused, reconsidering. _I don't want another tearful memory to intrude on our next training session if it can be avoided, _he considered. What better way was there to ensure that than to ask if there were any plans or memories tied to their future destination? "...Your mother mentioned the Rockies; did she have plans to visit Alaska?"

Joy and heavy thought mingled on Robin's face. "No. Not that I remember. I mean, we didn't have plans to go there or anything the way we...the way we did with here." His lower lip vanished between his teeth for an instant, then popped back into view. "But is that where we're going? Alaska? Cause that would be cool, Batman. Except that they have really _big_ bears there...I watched something on TV about that before. What about that?"

"We'll discuss bears more thoroughly before we go," he promised. "You'll mostly be worried about a different kind of bear than the one you saw in the forest yesterday, but we'll talk about it later."

"Polar bears?!"

"No. Not polar bears."

"But they have-"

"It's a very big place, Robin," he cut him off as gently as he could. "We aren't going where the polar bears live. And that's the last I'll say about it."

"...Bummer. Okay. Buuut..."

"Robin," his voice carried a warning.

"It's just that that's a long way for Flash and KF to run, honest!"

Batman sighed. "I've offered to fly them."

"_Really_?! No way?! Sorry," he apologized as the man winced at the noise. "It's just that that's awesome! I...I almost can't believe you did that, actually. Especially after what you said when Flash talked about hijacking this thing."

"Yes, well...it's done." _For better or worse._

"You know, you're a good friend when you're not being a jealous jerk."

The assertion was made with such a high degree of childish honesty that he couldn't quite manage to doubt that it was true. _Friends,_ he groaned. _Damned __friends__, always trying to get to know a person and lend them a hand... _"Your training would be fairly useless if KF was too exhausted to participate," he tried to brush the compliment off. "This way that won't be a problem."

"Okay. But you're still a good friend, and not even just to me anymore."

Batman knew a losing battle when he saw one, and let the topic drop. Thirty minutes went by, and when they passed through some light turbulence without any comments or exhortations that they pretend they were on a roller coaster being made he assumed that Robin had fallen asleep. That belief was proven incorrect shortly thereafter, when the boy spoke his name.

"...Yes?"

"I was thinking about something. Not about Alaska, but...about something else."

"What is it?"

"Well, the plane wouldn't hurt me, right? The same as the car?"

"Correct." His shoulders tensed as he anticipated the direction the query was heading. "So if someone bad had me – like if they'd kidnapped me or something – couldn't they use me to steal your secrets?"

This was the last thing in the world he wanted to talk about, or even to think about. Still, it was important that his protege know where the line lay on the issue, especially since he would soon be facing more and more dangerous adversaries. "Yes," he replied tersely. "They could."

"I thought so. I was thinking about it before, too, when we were back at the field. I was thinking about it, and I wanted to make sure that you knew I wouldn't ever help the bad guys if they caught me. I'd just wait for you to come save me."

"I...appreciate...that, but I want you to do something different."

"Huh?! Why?"

"Because the sort of people who would make you use your access to get them into the Batmobile or this plane are the sort of people who will not hesitate to hurt or even kill you if you refuse. There is nothing in either vehicle that will reveal either of our identities, and I trust that you could sufficiently lie to them about knowing how to set the autopilot to the cave, where they might do real damage. If it comes down to it – if someone puts a gun to your head and says they will pull the trigger if you don't open the door – then you open the door, Robin," he whispered harshly. "Do you understand?"

"But they'd get all of your technology! All of your info!"

"No. They wouldn't. Once you were inside you could reasonably claim that you know how to do very little, that _I _always drive or pilot and have never shown you how to do much of that. In such an instance your youth will serve you well, and the built-in defenses should do the rest to neutralize whoever the problem is. On the off-chance that they did get something out of it...well. I can replace technology. That's not as difficult as everyone seems to think it is." _I can't replace you, though,_ hung in the air between them. _Let's just hope that the people who would want my secrets bad enough to go after you never capitalize on that fact._

They held each others' gaze for a long moment. Then Robin, who was still frowning but seemed to be reaching an understanding as to why his mentor would issue such an order, nodded. "...Okay, Batman," he agreed. "I'll...I'll do what you said."

"Good," he answered, relief swelling in his chest. "But...just because criminals will think that you can't fly is no reason to not learn how. So..." He pushed a series of buttons on his side of the dash, causing the panels in front of Robin to begin rearranging themselves. A second steering apparatus locked into place before the open-mouthed boy, and Batman couldn't restrain a smirk. "...We might as well start training you now."

"I...I get to learn how to fly the plane?" an awed sigh came. "Like, for _real_?"

"Yes, Robin. Like for real."

"...This is the best weekend ever. You're the best _partner_ ever." Small fingers wrapped eagerly around the yoke. "I'm totally ready when you are. Teach me _everything_!"

..._I'll teach you everything I possibly can, son, _Batman swore._ I promise you that._

* * *

**Author's Note: I think we've only got one chapter left now, dear readers! **

**I have every intention of making the boys' next training trip into a story. I've been wanting to write something featuring my home state for a while now, and this seems like a great way to do it. However, be advised that it won't be nearly as calm a weekend as this one was, as there will be baddies to be busted! **

**Happy reading!**


	30. Chapter 30

Robin picked up the basics of piloting quickly, but Batman still insisted on taking over for landing. "Aw," the boy protested as his yoke folded itself back into the dash. "Bummer."

"We'll work on take off and landing with simulators before you do it in real life. It's too dangerous to do without practice unless you absolutely have to."

"Okay. Ow!" The boy reached for his ear. "What the heck?!"

"Pressure changes. Do you see the latch directly in front of your knees?"

"Yes."

"Open it." Held back as he was by his safety harness, Robin had to stretch to reach, but he managed it. "There's gum in there somewhere. Chew a piece while we descend; it will help."

"Gum? Sweet!" It appeared in an instant, and the air was soon heavy with the odor of mint. "Mmm...that's tingly. D'you want a piece?"

"No." He had long ago mastered the technique of leveling his internal and external pressures without props, and could do so without giving away his discomfort. No one needed to see his mouth working on a wad of pseudo-rubber, and more importantly no one needed to encounter a pleasantly fresh-breathed Batman in the dark alleys of Gotham. "...Make sure you spit it out before you leave the plane. You know how you-know-who is about sugar."

"Yeah. It's weird, though, huh? I mean, he doesn't like gum, or candy, or soda, but he gives us chocolate chip cookies every day."

Batman smirked. "He knows exactly what's going into the cookies. He can't vouch for pre-packaged foods, though, so he avoids them."

"...Oh. Why, is he afraid of someone poisoning us or something? Who would poison _you_? Civilian you, I mean."

"You'd be surprised." Realizing that such a statement was likely to make the child wary of eating – something he could hardly afford to be, even after a year-plus of Alfred's finest cooking – if not to give him outright nightmares, he went on. "No one's really _likely_ to try that, though. Poison is too easy to trace. Suffice it to say that some habits die hard, and a wariness about pre-packaged foods is one of his."

"Oh. Okay. That makes sense."

A short while later their craft settled gently down into its underground hangar. Robin disposed of his gum, proclaiming as he did that it had, in fact, helped, and then followed him out of the plane. The sliding doors that let the plane in and out of its hiding spot closed on the last sliver of the newly dark sky as their boots connected with earth, and Batman sighed to himself. It had been a good weekend of training, to be sure, but he was glad to be home.

Robin scampered ahead, eager to see Alfred and tell him the highlights of the trip. Both Bruce and Batman watched him go, pleased with the skip that was present in his step despite the hard work he'd done over the last two days. _...If you're done, I'd like my body back,_ Bruce half-joked. _I've been wanting to give that boy a huge hug almost since we left._

_Momentarily. At least let me get to the end of the tunnel. You can't embrace him very well with the cowl in one hand, in any case._

_...Seriously, Batman. Don't make me get grabby._

_I thought __Robin__ was the child here_. _I see I was wrong._

_Batman-_

_Go ahead, _he rolled hiseyes._ We're almost there, and being shoved out of the way isn't a pleasant sensation._

_You're telling me._ _Relax, you need a break before patrol anyway. _There was no argument, just a slow receding of his alter ego, and as he stepped into the main room of the cave Bruce yanked off his headgear. "Heh," he laughed as he spotted the mild wince that Alfred gave when he glanced down and spotted the dried mud that the boy's tackling embrace had left on his clothes. _Attack hugs. Robin's special move. _Really, he thought, the butler should have seen it coming.

"Master Wayne," a pained-looking nod greeted him. "...Good heavens, you're nearly as coated as the young sir is. What on earth happened?"

"Kiddo smacked me in the face with a ball of mud."

One eyebrow reached perilous heights. "I beg your pardon?"

"It was part of the training, Alfred!" the child chirped. "KF and I had to hunt Batman. Well...we were supposed to evade him, and Flash too, but we decided to hunt them instead. And it worked!"

"...Hunting humans. How delightful," Alfred rendered his opinion in a tone so dry that any still-wet mud they might have carried in would have hardened under it.

"I'll give you the finer details later," Bruce promised. "It wasn't as bad as it sounds. In fact," he tugged his son back against him and into a half-hug, "the kids did phenomenally."

"We kicked butt, right?"

"You bet you did. Dropped me right on mine, at least."

"Well," the butler's ruffled feathers seemed to smooth, "I'm pleased to hear that you performed well this weekend, young sir, but I must insist that you both get yourselves cleaned up and to the dining room. I've held dinner for you, and you must be hungry, hmm?"

"Yup! But don't worry, we ate lots of good stuff on our trip," Robin swore. "We caught our own fish, and picked our own berries, and roasted our own hot d-" He broke off, smacking his gloves over his mouth. "Uhhh..."

"Trying to hit me with a metaphorical mud ball now, chum?" Bruce groaned. _Didn't we __just__ talk about his pre-packaged foods phobia?_

But Alfred simply shook his head as if he'd expected as much. "Go on, now, Master Dick," he waved the child away. "Get ready for dinner, and then you can regale me with all of your training tales."

"...Okay. Sorry, Bruce," he apologized. "I didn't mean it, honest."

"It's okay. I know it was an accident. Go get cleaned up; I'll be in in a second."

"'Kay." With that he started towards the changing area, peeking back over his shoulder with every other step.

"Hot dogs," the Englishman bemoaned once the youth was gone. "I knew I ought to have insisted on packing your food supplies. Although I suppose if nothing else has come out of this, I shan't fall for your little mistruth about Mister Allen purchasing the comestibles a second time."

"Will you burn my breakfast even a _little_ less tomorrow if I tell you I bought organic hot dogs and whole grain buns?" Bruce tried without much hope. He knew hot dogs had been a gamble, but it seemed like such an innocent thing at the time...

"Hmm..." Alfred appeared to consider the offer. Then he chuckled, and the storm clouds lifted from his face. "Oh, I don't see why I should burn your breakfast. I sincerely hope that you _did_ feed him the healthiest alternatives you could find, but the more I think about how he must have lit up when he saw what you were going to be eating the less angry I become. You were camping, after all, and I don't see how an organic hot dog or two could overwhelm the generally wholesome diet you both follow at home."

Not thinking it prudent at this juncture to mention how many of the hated sausages the speedsters had downed, the billionaire just smiled. "...Thanks. I've been looking forward to eggs and bacon all weekend."

"Of course. I'll lay you out a Sunday-style spread in the morning, shall I?"

"Sure. That sounds good."

"Very well. But tell me..." The older man's gaze traveled to the wall blocking off the changing area, then met his again. "...They did well, the boys? Truly?"

"If you'll forgive my language, Alfred," he felt his shoulders straighten of their own accord, "they really did kick our asses. _Robin_ kicked our asses. I'm not saying Kid Flash didn't help, but I know who came up with the plan that got Flash and I surprise mud facials, and that's enough for me."

"...Excellent, sir. That's quite excellent, indeed." For a second Bruce saw his own parental joy reflected in the butler's expression. "I daresay it calls for ice cream after dinner, at least. Don't you?"

"He's earned it." _And it won't hurt him a bit if he lost any weight with all the running around we did, _he added to himself.

"I'll make the necessary preparations, then." A pleased smile slipped across Alfred's lips. "I'll see you upstairs shortly, sir."

"You bet," he nodded. "See you in a few."

* * *

Several hours later Bruce leaned over and brushed his hand through his sleeping son's hair one more time. "You did so well this weekend, Dicky," he breathed. "...So well. We'll go see Gobblehead tomorrow, okay?" Bending closer, he pressed a soft kiss against the boy's temple. "Sleep tight, chum. No nightmares, okay? Just good dreams."

Finally he rose and backed towards the doorway. There he paused, his body blocking enough of the light that Dick didn't stir but not so much that he couldn't still see him. He might have stood there all night, just watching the slumbering lump under the blankets and letting his pride build up and up until he exploded, had Alfred not spoken from behind him.

"...Sir?"

"Huh? Oh..." With one last glance into the room, he turned away and shut the portal behind himself. "What's up, Alfred?"

"Is the young master asleep already? Only I thought I might wipe his ear down again..." Dick hadn't been in the dining room more than thirty seconds before the butler had noted the nick in his freshly-scrubbed skin. A dire chastisement about failing to report mask injuries had followed, and had only slackened off when Bruce had entered and explained that he had been monitoring the injury since it had occurred. The boy had been allowed to eat his dinner without further hassling, but he had been required to have the tiny wound thoroughly rinsed and coated with antibacterial cream before he could enjoy dessert.

Given that, the billionaire wasn't surprised in the least that Alfred was carrying a clean rag and a bottle of peroxide. "He went out like a light," he told him. "Sorry. It should be fine, though. It really wasn't that deep, and it was more cartilage than anything that got caught."

"That doesn't preclude an infection, Master Wayne. I do hate to wake him when he's worked hard for the last two days and had to take his rest on the ground in the bargain, though...well, I'll just have to catch him in the morning. It won't be a terribly kind wake-up call, but I imagine he'll resent it less after a good night's sleep in his own bed than he would right now." A beat passed. "And you, sir? Will you take the evening off? You must be just as tired as he is."

"Tired, yes. Taking the night off, no." He didn't dare, not when the whole weekend had passed without his shadow falling across Gotham's lowlifes so much as once. "But if you have a few minutes, there are a couple of things that happened that you should know about before I go." He hadn't dared bring up Dick's night terror and other upsetting moments while the child might overhear, but he didn't want to leave the house without passing on the information to the only person who would be present were those demons to raise their heads again tonight.

Alfred's gaze sharpened. "Nightmares?" he guessed.

"Yes."

"Damn. Pardon me," he went on, raising one hand apologetically. "It's just that I had so hoped he might escape them with a change of scenery."

"Me, too, but...well, there were triggers that I couldn't control. I think he's worked past them – we talked, and he had a good chat with Wally, too – but just in case..."

"Of course, of course. Why don't we adjourn to the kitchen? A bit of coffee might help you through your patrol without affecting your sleep if you drink it now."

"Yeah, that sounds good." He began to follow the butler towards the stairs. Then he stopped and turned back, letting his eyes linger on the door he'd closed.

"...Sir?"

"It's funny, Alfred," he mused out loud. "I'm glad to be home, and I'm glad that he's safe in bed, but...there's something special about going on adventures with him. You know I'm not a fan of being in the middle of nowhere, but this weekend...I'd repeat this weekend in a heartbeat, so long as I knew he'd be by my side."

"I wouldn't fret about it, Master Wayne," Alfred advised warmly. "I have every reason to believe that you and the young sir will be off on your next adventure very soon."

"Yeah..." He nodded, a faint grin arching his lips as he recalled the boy's reaction to the news about Alaska. He might as well bring that up once they were downstairs, too; it was only three months away, after all. Besides, they were likely to get into some sort of shenanigans before September, and the more he thought about it the more he couldn't wait. _"__...Very_ soon._"_

* * *

**Author's Note: Well, dear readers, that's a wrap! I hope you enjoyed this little romp; I certainly enjoyed bringing it to you.**

**Now, a little housekeeping. My plan is to just do short pieces, most likely 'Summer Shorts' chapters, for the rest of this week. I will not be posting this coming Saturday or Sunday, as I'll be out on the track 24 hours straight for Relay for Life. However, on either Monday or Tuesday you will see the first chapter of 'Tectonic Doom,' which is the Dick/Tim hiking-and-saving-the-world story I mentioned a while back. **

**Other stories you can look forward to this summer include 'The Silent Treatment,' the premise of which I'm keeping a secret for now, and of course 'Death on High,' which will be the boys' training mission to Alaska. **

**Once fall hits we'll do a little sneaking around with Dick and Wally in a haunted house in an as-yet-untitled story, and we'll also see Robin tackle his first big-name villain in 'Fear Factor.' I hope to have both of those wrapped up on or around Halloween.**

**As always, thanks for taking this journey with me, and happy reading!**


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